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J 

MAN OVERBOARD! 


A Naughty Novel 


by 

Hervey White 

n 


Published by the Maverick Press at 
Woodstock, N.Y. 


Copyright , 1922 by Hervey White 


CHAPTER I 


The Ship 


-I am so glad we decided against the men!... 
And Marion Cody settled luxuriously among the cush- 
ions. 

- I thought it was the men who decided against us. 
Sylvia Howard’s lips were drawn in the faintest smile. 

- Now, Sylvia, don’t carp. Miss Cody patted her 
friend’s hand with generous authority. You know I am 
jealous of the men’s falling in love with you, my dear. 
You know I want you all for myself. 

- But you love to sparkle, Cody, and you can’t all 
the time with just me. 

- Don’t I sparkle for you, dear? 

- Beautifully! But a diamond needs many candles. 

- Now, Sylvia, I don’t want to be a diamond. I 
want to be a damned electric light. 

- An arc light! You are! murmured Sylvia. 

- Not enough either! 1 want to be a power-house. 


2 


- You run me, dear. 

- It requires a complete electric system to do that. 
Look at that landscape. Have I not chosen well? 

Their car was sweeping around a patterned valley 
that spread like a Persian rug before the mountain... 
Meadows, tilled fields, and villas, swung like tapestry, 
and curving drive- ways gave perspective to the design. 
Soon the driver turned into a private gate, standing 
open, and began to climb the leisurely ascent. First, 
they penetrated a young grove of eucalyptus, then 
crossed an extended flat of fresh-sprung barley. A thin 
hedge of pink geraniums screened the sea view, the 
top- most blossoms full eight feet above the ground. 

- A man for pink ! laughed Miss Cody sententious- 
ly. Don’t tell me the men aren’t sentimental. They 
wallow in sentiment. Pink! That’s for love. And pink 
roses on the terraces!... I told you. 

- Mr. Morgan was thinking of a contrast to the sea. 
He explained it to me on the train that pink gives more 
depth to the turquoise. 

- Love, my dear, love was what he was thinking of. 
Even I am falling into Swinburnian rhymes. Love and 
of... 0, fiddle! I suppose all the men pronounce it uv. 

- There’s the house behind the pepper trees. Isn’t 
it stunning! It heaves against the sky like a great white 
ship. 

- Sylvia, you are the poet. To hell with Swinburne! 
Ship ahoy!... An idea... We’ll call it The Morganatic! 
How’s that for a pun? You are a genius. 

- If it is a ship, Cody, you are the captain. There’s 

Q 

O 


none that can stand up against you. 

- Then you shall be the mate. And this ear shall 
be the pinnace... Bo’sn, lay hard off the larboard bow. 
I say, Carlos, have you ever sailed a boat? 

- Ma’am? questioned the driver deferentially... No. 
ma’am, I’ve always kept to the land. 

- No more have I. But we shall call you Bo’sn. 
That’s sea-dog for boatswain. Now, remember. 

- Yes, ma’am. 

- No: you must say Ay, ay, Sir! 

- Ay, ay, sir. 

- It sounds like a boys’ club in a social settlement 
when the director asks for volunteers to pass programs. 
And, Cody... 

- Captain, sir, corrected that lady authoritatively. 
When you speak of me, you may call me the skipper... 

- I think, Captain Cody, went on Miss Howard in 
mock seriousness, I think the man who runs the pin- 
nace is the cockswain. 

- If you are going to quibble, matey, I think sailors 
do not speak of running a boat. But I sail above all 
such trivialities. I mean to go in for general effect on- 
ly. Genre stuff, as our friends, the artists, put it. 

At this moment the car drew up at a Gothic door 
set under a white stucco porch of Spanish architecture. 
Marigolds crowded thick about. 

- It feels like a church rather than a ship, laughed 
Sylvia as she stepped inside the door-way. 

- The cathedral builders had the same feeling when 
they called their main edifice the nave. 

4 


Mrs. Stowe was helping with the luggage. 

- All right, Carlos, she was saying. 

- Don’t forget, Bos’n, admonished the Captain. 

- Ay, ay, Sir, Ma’am! Carlos bowed politely. 

- It’s a ship, Mrs. Stowe, explained Miss Cody 
grandly. I am the Captain, and this is Miss Howard, 
the Mate. I will show her the cabin; you needn’t 
bother. 

- Your state-rooms are all ready, Captain Cody. 

- Ay, ay, Sir! replied the Captain still more grandly. 

- Hall, English. I like the stairway; said Sylvia, 
admiring, and giving the Captain’s hand a delighted 
squeeze. 

- Here is the dining-room: more on the Spanish 
order again; but dining-rooms the world over I fancy 
suggest mortuary rites rather than festivity. 

-Oh, but the long windows give out to the sea! 
and Sylvia pushed through on to an open gallery, that 
extended the full length of the house. 

This gallery had groined vaulting, like a cloister, 
supported on the outside by a row of stuccoed pillars, 
between which ran a bench-like balustrade. Around 
these the vivid red poinsettias trailed their flower-foliage 
against the whiteness of the plaster, forming most dra- 
matic frames for the panels of the sea as the gazer 
paced down the sheltered corridor.. . turquoise, lapis- 
lazuli, malachite, jade, chrysophrase, amethyst and 
garnet... pigment colors could not name them, they 
were luminous, made of sunlight transmuted through 
water... far from sight lay the delectable islands, but 
5 


their presence was suggested by the floating continent 
of sea-kelp that mingled its Tyrian purples in the tides. 

Sylvia walked down the full length of the open 
gallery, marvelling at each landscape vision as she 
passed it. The foreground was their lawn of native 
grasses, unmown and sprinkled in with flowers intro- 
duced with such modest art of the gardener as to yield 
the effect of natural bloom-strown meadow. Great boul- 
ders heaved their smooth backs here and there, while 
the receding slope of their hill-top gave so unobtrusive- 
ly into the wide terraces of the garden that the result 
was one of centuries of old-world horticulture, but stim- 
ulated by the southern enthusiasm of California. The 
terraces were chiefly given over to olive orchard and 
vineyard, the spacious flats doubly planted with vegeta- 
ble beds, where sometimes homelike flowers were inter- 
blended. A palm tree rose stately and lone at the ab- 
rupt ledge terminus of the second terrace, giving per- 
spective to the sea view on the left, while on the right, 
where the terraces disappeared around the hill, the sea 
view rose beyond an orchard of tangerines and grape- 
fruit, shimmering away into the tints of lost horizons. 

Sylvia stood for some moments at the north end 
of the gallery where the stuccoed arch gave view up a 
glowing valley and thence away o’er the rounded backs 
of red-gold hills. Their own thorny rugged mountain 
lay to the left or westward, and could only be glimpsed 
around the pepper trees. The eucalyptus grove of the 
drive-way lay below, while to the right of it extended 
the barley fields and meadows, plumed frequently with 
6 


green live-oaks like aged apple trees, and sloping down 
distantly to the sea in a peninsula with a blue mount- 
ain at its point. 

Sylvia turned to her companion enthusiastically, 
grasping her two hands and holding them, a sunshine 
of gratitude in her moist eyes like reflections in a brown 
meadow brook. 

- Cody, let’s live here always, will you?... away 
from the world of strife, and men. 

Marion Cody’s laugh was always a little hard, but 
now it mellowed with victorious content. 

- It takes strife to acquire all this, matey. The 
men, I grant you, we could do very well without. But 
take a look at the music room before we go out to our 
hut. 

They stepped through another of the full-length, 
open windows, and were in a hall more than ever like 
a church. Indeed, it resembled the interior of a Roman 
basilica, and held much of that same sense of shelter- 
ing space. The timbered and coffered ceiling was lofty, 
there was a gallery with alcoved stairway across one 
end; at the opposite end, a triple-arch window of soft 
translucent glass; on the veil wall side, a great chim- 
ney piece built in, like a chapel; withal an atmosphere 
for incense and rest-worship. There was no organ in 
the gallery as one would expect. Instead, the space was 
fitted with a library, lighted by low, balcony-giving 
windows. On a platform, just in front, was a grand 
piano standing open, drawn forward from beneath the 
gallery sufficiently so that its low architrave would not 


interfere with the sound. 

Sylvia threw off her hat and gloves and running 
to it with laughing seriousness struck the first bars of 
the Pilgrims’ Chorus. The accoustics proved good, the 
melody rolled, and both women gave up to its enjoy- 
ment. Then, as if well arranged by a stage manager, 
a door opened softly beneath the gallery, and in pran- 
ced the athletic figure of a dancer, a buxom young 
woman of five and twenty, clad in the scantiest cos- 
tume of trunks and tunic, bare arms, bare legs, her 
round head wreathed with lilies, taking rhythmically, 
in accordance with the music, the attitudes expressive 
of the theme. 

Behind her, in the doorway, stood another young 
woman, but conventionally dressed, this one like a 
saucy bunch of sunshine in gay laughter, her white 
ruffled frock set off with clusters of nasturtiums arrang- 
ed audaciously at her throat and at her belt. Still back 
of her appeared two other women, arm-linked, one a 
mannish little figure in gray walking costume, with 
thin hair and sallow 7 face and bead-bright eyes, her 
companion, more youthful and of a melancholy rich- 
ness, slender, passionate, dark, and wfith a sensitive 
petulance in her smiling that gave warning of anger to 
be aroused. These were respectively dancer, pianist, 
poet, painter, already established members of the 
household, and they were coming into the studio for 
their regular afternoon session of work, each one equip- 
ped with the paraphenalia of her profession, and all, 
except the dancer, somewhat dismayed at the intrusion 
8 


and- familiar occupancy of the new arrivals, whom they 
supposed had gone directly to their rooms. 

Each one had met the surprise in characteristic 
manner: the dancer... her name was Cecily Blount... 
had accepted music and an audience as her natural el- 
ement, and like a gold-fish that has found a new re- 
treat in its aquarium, had begun to swum in it on a 
tour of exploration; the ingenuous pianist, also famil- 
iar with audiences of strangers, had only to be gay and 
look pretty; the poetess, who took all thrills very se- 
riously, felt bound to be quite shivery w T ith this one; 
the painter, who had lived much alone and was more 
suspicious, wondered why the new T guests had not an- 
nounced themselves in more formal manner... their 
taking thus possession seemed somew 7 hat fonvard. 

But Miss Cody was a woman of the wmrld, and 
passing the dancer w r ith gay mimicry of mock obeisance, 
she advanced cordially to the hesitating artist, and ad- 
dressing her as Miss Gaylord, the hostess, made apol- 
ogy and explanation for their presence, calling Sylvia 
for formal introduction. 

- She has just escaped from a religious aunt in Los 
Angeles, she said laughing, and too much liberty has 
affected her brain. 

With such chatter a pleasant basis was established 
and everything settled down into its natural sequence, 
the pianist, Miss Knox, began arranging her music for 
the dancer, Miss Gaylord brought forth her easel and 
scrutinized the canvas critically, the poetess, who had 
been introduced as Mrs. Letitia Sw T an, took out her tab- 
9 


let and awaited inspiration, while the new arrivals went 
off to their rooms, which were in a rustic hut on a low- 
er terrace of the garden, on a rounded point with the 
citrus grove beneath it, and looking across to an added 
expanse of sea. 

- How did the poetess ever get among them? que- 
ried Sylvia while preparing for the bath. But I suppose 
there must always be a discord to accent the harmony 
of the composition. 

- How clever you are, matey, to grasp a situation! 
Now when I was here last week, I thought the poetess 
the most interesting of the bunch. But today, her voice 
did grate on my nerves. The greatest gift a woman can 
have is not beauty, or sympathy, it seems, but rather, 
a mellow, vibrant voice. 

- It is the sympathy, behind, that gives real mel- 
lowness, said Sylvia from the bath-room, in the midst 
of splashing. 

Miss Cody was taking down her hair before the 
panel-glass, and its glossy blackness always had the ef- 
fect to make her silent. 

- Her voice is raspy like her manner, went on Syl- 
via. Is Swan her maiden name, or the name of her 
divorced husband? 

- Husband’s name, I fancy. I’m not sure. 1 should 
like to get a glimpse of the man who would marry her. 

- If ’twas long ago, no doubt she was prettier. 

- Sylvia, do you think 1 have a mannish voice? 

- Strong and rich, but not mannish, assured Sylvia 
promptly. At least not masculine. You sometimes af- 
10 


feet the mannish. 

- A protest against my timidity, asserted Marion. 

- The pianist is the nicest, resumed Sylvia musing, 
But Beatrice Knox is not a suitable name for her. 

- Bee, or Trixie, would not go so badly. 

- But Knox! It sounds like the prize ring, or the 
War Department Building. 

-She ought to be Cecily instead of that Amazonian 
dancer. Why will women with fat legs persist in show- 
ing them? 

- Or skinny legs either, for that matter, urged 
Sylvia, I hate nudity in women. It’s repulsive. 

- In women! It’s more repulsive in men. 

- They are not given to showing themselves... the 
manly ones. 

- And what is your impression of Miss Gaylord? 
Charlotte now becomes her very well. 

-Jealous, restless, morbid, extremely sensitive... 
deliberated Sylvia, I think we shall like her the best 
of the lot. I suppose such combinations as this are al- 
ways bizarre. 

- They fit in with each other better than we do 
with them. But I mean to cultivate every one just the 
same. I shall put them all into my next novel. 

- I suppose it was Mr. Morgan who rounded them 
up. 

- My dear, we are not cattle nor he a ranche-man. 
Turn on the water for me when you have finished. 
How fresh you look in that pink robe! Yes, lovely! 
You really ought to have an evening gown of pink. 

11 


- I am partial to pale green; pink is infantile. 

- You have the complexion of an infant. Now, 
don’t pout. Your high forehead suggests Minerva. 

- Minerva with a Roman nose! 0, Cody! 

- A Roman nose is better than a dished one, and 
my face is spotted like a strawberry bed. Yes, Sylvia, 
you are the beauty of our corporation. You may as 
well be resigned to play the part. 

- 1 don’t have any more style than a mouse, and 
you walk like a grenadier in full uniform. 

- Darling, don’t the grenadiers ride? 

- Not in the illustrated papers... I wish my name 
were Letitia. 

- It would suit your prim little mouth better than 
it does that steel trap it belongs to. 

- I didn’t notice Mrs. Swan’s mouth was like a 
steel trap. Her eyes were pleasant... Let’s loll until 
it’s time to dress for dinner. 

- You moon about the view while I am in the 
bath. It is glorious. Even my prosaic self am disposed 
to eulogize. 

Sylvia was half reclining in the window-seat, look- 
ing out over the opaque sheen of the Pacific. A palm 
tree stood close by to aid perspective and a thin hedge 
of pink roses laced the foreground which was a tilled 
terrace planted with olive trees and kitchen vegetables. 
An acequia flowed over gray boulders close by the hut, 
tempering the heat with a constant coolness of tinkling 
water. Even colors were made to contribute to the 
effect of freshness, for the kitchen garden contained 
12 


nothing of the hot greens of potatoes or carrots, but 
the blues of cauliflowers leeks and cabbage blended in 
with the gray leafage of the olives, while against the 
wall vined the acanthus-like tendrils of the artichoke 
in harmonious softness of cool tones. Below the three 
broad terraces were grass-clipped pastures, plumed with 
live-oak trees suggesting ancient orchards, their shade 
sparsely dotted with resting sheep. 

- It is Arcady, save Pan and his shepherds! sighed 
Sylvia. It the Isles of Greece... 

- The Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved 
and sung... spouted Marion. Don’t ask me for more, 
though it was in my ‘Favorite Selections’. . 

- Do you know, I have half a hankering for Byron. 

- Sylvia Howard, will you leave such degeneracies 
with the Hoosier dialect? Can I not rouse you with 
mention of all the poetry journals on the continent, 
and the adulations paid therein to S. H., the subtlest 
mistress of the rhythms and imagery of vers libre? If 
California is going to sentimentalize you back to Byron 
we’ll take the first train for New York. Next thing 
you will be yearning for Felicia Dorothea Hemans, or 
Jean Ingelow. My God, Matey, what an old woman I 
have become ! It was aeons ago I used to read the Bells 
of Enderby... “Play uppe, play uppe... in some way 
I imagined that rhymed with puppy - 

- And I used to dote on The Letter L, mused Syl- 
via. 

- “You are old, Father William...” Come, let’s 
be seaworthy. We’re aboard The Morganatic. Tomor- 
18 


row I shall get busy with the ship’s log, in land-lubber 
terms, the eighth chapter of my novel; and you, my 
dear, must finish your volume of poems: the publish- 
ers, the critics, the public, all demand it. 

They set about their dressing for dinner with all 
the care of ladies who are to dine formally. They rec- 
ognized that women are more exacting about such nice- 
ties than when there are to be men at the table. Miss 
Cody was resplendent in white satin, extremely low cut 
and generous as to train. With bare shoulders, her im- 
perially crowned head showed to advantage; and while 
her features were irregular, they were strong, and did 
not belie the proud dignity ,of her gracious carriage. 
Sylvia was gowned in her favorite pale green... round 
cut neck, and silver fillet in her hair. Sylvia was al- 
ways sweet and lovely, but with a modesty that was at 
the same time placid and self-contained 

As the two walked along the gravel path to the 
house, they were well worthy of the admiration they 
elicited from the group awaiting them on the long gal- 
lery, itself a colorful picture framed in by the poinset- 
tia-laced pillars. Beatrice Knox was dressed in white 
with marigolds in her sunshiny hair and at her belt. 
Charlotte Gaylord was in purple silk with amber beads. 
Cecily Blount, in nasturtium red and t yellow. Letitia 
Swan looked hot and sallow in gray, while another la- 
dy, cool and pallid in the same color, stood formally 
awaiting introduction. 

- Dr. Maxwell, brusquely explained the stuffy po- 
etess. Miss Cody and Miss Howard, she added. 

14 


It was as natural for Marion Cody to take the lead- 
ership as it was for the others to follow. None the less, 
it was Miss Gaylord who acted as hostess and took the 
place to serve at the head of the table. As Miss Cody 
was placed at the foot, socially speaking, the table turn- 
ed a summersault in an instant; or was it that Miss 
Cody became the host, whereas Miss Gaylord still re- 
tained her serving office? 

- This villa has many perfections, began Marion, 
as all seemed to be awaiting her comment, but not the 
least of them, I think you will agree with me, is the 
fact that there are not any men. 

- Confusion to the men! proclaimed Mrs. Letitia 
Swan. 

- If we wish them confusion, laughed Beatrice 
Knox with a flash, I think we should charge them like 
an army. 

- Or like sunlight in a marsh, said Sylvia prettily, 
her glance of approval showing where the compliment 
was directed. 

- I’m sure I don’t wish the men more confusion 
than they are already in, corrected Charlotte Gaylord. 

- My dear lady, Miss Cody took the reins, I assure 
you I was not defaming the noble creatures, I was self- 
ishly thinking only of ourselves. I believe we are all 
here to work, and men, to say the least, are an inter- 
ruption. 

- They have to be amused, chimed silvery Sylvia. 

- Flatter them and ’tis done, laughed Miss Knox. 

- Yes, men are bowled over by flattery, echoed 


15 


the poetess. 

- We must not allow them a monopoly of that 
weakness, urged Miss Cody; you speak now of a drink 
of which I am particularly fond. 

- Why not a flower, Cody? asked Miss Howard. 

- It is stronger than a flower: it is a liquor. Does 
it not intoxicate, even to folly, if not to madness?... 
Flatter me, friends, flatter me, and I am your slave! 

The poetess was put out, and turned to the Doctor. 
The conversation became divided and personal, it was 
not until they had retired to the library for coffee that 
Miss Cody broached her theory of the ship. 

- It is a ship, and I am the Chief Steward, an- 
nounced the poetess, who had returned to spokesman- 
ship. 

- Salute the Chief Steward ! said Miss Cody taking 
command. 

- Then I ought to be the Engineer, suggested Char- 
lotte Gaylord in the trembling hope that they would 
name her for Captain. 

- Salute the Engineer! commanded the command- 
ing Marion. 

- I propose Miss Cody for Captain. It was the in- 
nocence of Beatrice Knox that made the rush. 

- Salute Captain Cody! said Sylvia softly; and 
at once they all felt it had to be. 

- I am going to be a Midshipman, announced the 
guy Beatrice. I shall carry all the intimate orders to 
the mate. 

- But who will be the Mate? asked Cecily Blount. 


16 


I shall be Purser: he’s always fat. 

- There’s nobody left, but Miss Howard, if Miss 
Maxwell reserves her prerogative as Ship’s Doctor. 

- Matey, you’re elected! declared the Captain. 

- When the question of a name for the ship was 
introduced, it was the Captain who proposed The Mor- 
ganatic. - While genuine, it is unofficial, she put forth, 
and I am sure our landlord will enjoy the pun. 

Mrs. Stowe, the Cabin Steward, was consulted, 
and she assured them Mr. Morgan would be delighted. 
When she had rented the villa of him for a boarding- 
house, they had tried to introduce the word, pension, 
to apply to it, but it didn’t take... many people could 
not pronounce it, and the place was now inconveniently 
nameless. 

Then the question came up of a formal christening 
with a bottle of champagne in nautical fashion, but 
always the interest of the discussion centred around 
men... should they invite men aboard their ship, or 
should they exclude them? They finally put the matter 
to ballot, wherein each voter was asked to give her rea- 
sons. The Purser took charge of the roster, Each spea- 
ker was allowed two minutes uninterrupted. Here is 
the report of the Purser, taken from the ship’s log: 

“Captain Marion Cody being first asked for vote 
with statement, deposed and pronounced as follows... 

‘Each one of us has come here for her winter’s 
work... I speak only for myself: I have to finish a nov- 
el; my publishers must have the manuscript by April, 
and it is already the seventh of January... Now, men 
17 


guests mean entertainment, conversation. Also vve 
must accept their invitations in return. We all know 
how much energy this consumes, not to speak of the 
time. If one. has the right to invite guests, we all have, 
and we will soon be rivaling each other in hospitality. 
We make no rule about entertaining on shore. There 
is a club house along side at which we all have cards. 
Here on board, we are practically all strangers to each 
other, and we have ample opportunity among ourselves 
for companionship and entertainment. As for taking 
men on board the Morganatic, my vote is... No. Please 
so record it. 

“Mate Sylvia Howard spoke as follows: ‘I like 
men and their company, but I’ve come to rest; also, a 
little, I hope, to work. 1 vote... No, for reasons simi- 
lar to the Captain’s. 

“Chief Engineer, Charlotte Gaylord, said: ‘I don’t 
wan’t to ask any men, myself, but just to stand out for 
individual freedom, I vote... Yes. {applause) 

“Chief Steward, Letitia Swan... 'God damn the 
..jen I I say every time. If 1 could, I’d vote ’em off 
the face of the earth. ( cheers ) 

“The Purser, Cecily Blount... As 1 want to make 
my exercises practically nude, I must selfishly vote... 
No, to all men. 

“The Midshipman, Beatrice Knox... ‘Men are 
nice, and 1 like them, and I don’t care; I think I’ll 
vote... Yes: against the Captain. 

“The Doctor, Priscilla Maxwell... ‘The matter is 
one of complete indifference to me. If men are about, 
18 


I do not notice it. Neither do 1 notice it if they are 
away. I wish to work constantly at my micropcope. 
But not to seem to oppose men, I vote... Yes. 

Summary: the vote stands, four against, and three 
for. Decision... Men shall not be permitted on board. 


CHAPTER II 
The Man 


A week of plain sailing passed over the Morganatic, 
only ruffled by the arrival of two more shipmates, a 
sculptress and her daughter from St. Louis, who were 
immediately dubbed The Passengers, First and Second 
Class. 

Irene Duke was a woman still in the prime of her 
beauty at forty, and a formidable rival for younger 
women whenever men entered into consideration... 
True, she was not tall like the Captain; she had noth- 
ing of the sweet sensitiveness of the Mate. These two 
latter women immediately pronounced her bold, and if 
a Greek statue could be characterized as bold, their 
dictum might be justified by reasons. Familiar with 
nude figures from her girlhood, she had no sense of 
shame about exposure. She, herself, had much of the 
Greek in her figure, cultivated as it had been along 
lines of aesthetic sentiment. Her feet, limbs, and torse 
22 


had never been confined by tight clothing, her throat 
had never been marred by stiff collars, her arms gave 
naturally to free, upward movement, and her round 
head, strongly poised on supple neck, lent expression 
genuinely statuesque to her features which were regular 
and not unlike the Greek, while her soft skin had the 
placidity of pink-tinged marble. Indeed, she was in 
every way superior to the over-practiced figure of Cecily 
Blount: for whereas the dancer had studied only for 
display, and had taken her exercises accordingly, the 
sculptress had kept beauty for her ideal, and, not ap- 
plying it consciously to. herself, had grown into it 
through devotion to the universal. She was fond of 
making her person beautiful, it is true, and was wont 
to twine leaves in her smooth braids, that were always 
bound crown-like around her head; but she had the 
sculptor’s faculty of seeing her beauty outside of her- 
self, for its own sake, rather than as satisfaction to her 
vanity. Her eyes were gray, her brows level and clean- 
ly penciled with ashen brown to match her hair. Her 
lips were pink with the health of a young girl; they 
knew how to take pretty curves, quite coquettishly , for 
notwithstanding her marble-like serenity, she was in 
no way a woman of stone. 

Her daughter, Tessie, as is not unusual among the 
daughters of ‘advanced women’, was conventional in 
figure, dress, and manner. Of russet freckled complex- 
ion, brown eyes and brilliant red hair - like sunlit cop- 
per - she cultivated high-heeled shoes and tight-laced 
clothing, stiff collars, long sleeves, and fashionable 
23 


hats, but in methods of flirtation, *ar ahead of her 
mother, which went well with her scarce now twenty 
years. She immediately became chums with Beatrice 
Knox. She looked somewhat askance at Cecily Blount. 
Being familiar from childhood with her mother’s free 
ways, she never considered them questionable, or did 
not seem to... She was healthy, normal, spirited, not 
pretty, and soon became the pet and friend of all. She 
could sing, dance, play the piano, do various ‘stunts’; 
and with the Midshipman, gave the entire company a 
flavor of youthfulness: even the Doctor and the Chief 
Steward learned to skip, rejuvenated by this innocula- 
tion of girlhood buoyancy. 

The Morganatic, itself, was like a landscape in a 
honeymoon; for the name was made to include the 
grounds and garden as the three huts were well outside 
the lawn of the house. The estate had been designed 
by Mr. Morgan, before the fatal illness of his wife, for 
a group of artists they had gathered about them... the 
music-room had been a studio for the painters, and 
the three huts for their private accommodation. When 
Mr. Morgan found himself alone, being left, as he was, 
childless and without family attachment, he had found 
the place too suggestive of old memories and withdrawn 
to the comfortable bachelorhood of the Country Club. 
At first he had planned to let the villa, but that would 
involve the dismissal of the househeeper, Mrs. Stowe; 
the servants, too, had become attached to the place, 
and there was always the probability of return, so it 
was decided to keep the household together. But the 
24 


stables, the garden, the garage, were a heavy expense, 
to lighten which, the thrifty Mrs. Stowe hit upon the 
plan of a pension. Also it would not be in the hands 
of strangers, as all the guests were friends of Mr. Mor- 
gan who would respect his personal affection in all de- 
tails. He was fond of a house full of company, perhaps 
more than ever in his loneliness, and without seeming 
to entertain in his years of mourning, this business ar- 
rangement would keep him in contact with sympathetic 
and clever women for whom he held a cultivated appre- 
ciation gained from a life of leisure and observation. 

The villa in its architecture and grounds had been 
lovingly planned in reminiscence of similar estates in 
Italy, though the Spanish American influences in Cali- 
fornia were evident in the ornamentation of the house. 
For a site a rounded hill-top had been selected, the 
house being placed slightly below the summit which 
permitted the stables and farm in the rear to be out of 
view with their drainage toward a ravine of the moun- 
tains that cut in deep behind the hill and gave an ar- 
royo with sycamores and polished boulders. The sum- 
mit was rain-worn bared granite, but in the crevices, 
the short grass had found a footing, and sweet alyssum 
scattered everywhere through it gave a faraway, cloud- 
land sense of spring. On the several slopes of this sum- 
mit were arranged the huts, each one with two wide- 
windowed rooms. The house was on the broadest slope 
which gave toward the sea and was encircled by the 
terraced garden on that side, with the drive-way and 
its eucalyptus grove on the other, the garden extending 
25 


by three times the larger sector, on the North, the full 
East and South. 

Within the garden, on the third terrace below the 
lawn of the villa where the ground fell more suddenly 
away was another house of much more modest propor- 
tions so sheltered in its greenery of fig trees as to be 
quite invisible from the larger house above. Even its 
gate- way overgrown with thick vines was hardly notice- 
able from the drive on the third terrace, so that it was 
not unreasonable that Sylvia should appear one after- 
noon in the music room where the company were hav- 
ing tea and startle them with her starry-eyed announce- 
ment that there was a man on board the ship. 

- 1 was hastening along the lower terrace road, I 
had been down among the meadows gathering lilies, 
and fearing that I might be late for tea, was walking 
with my eyes bent on the path. Imagine my surprise 
when I found I was in a brick-paved court -yard, before 
an open door- way; and in that door-way a man was 
standing, smoking... a brown man - I mean his hair 
and beard and clothes were golden brown. He was 
smoking a large brown meerschaum and looked so pict- 
uresque and half laughing that I gasped out - “I beg 
pardon, I thought you were a picture,’ ’ and then both 
of us had to stop and laugh. 

- But there is no court- yard and no door-way on 
the lower terrace, breathed the Captain, fearful that 
the Mate had gone insane. 

- So I had supposed. But the gate is quite over- 
grown with vines, and this time it was standing wide 


open. 1 had followed the track, you see, and entered 
without noticing. 

- I am disappointed to learn he had clothes on, 
sighed Mrs. Duke, I had made up my mind he was a 
merman . 

- But he has no right to be on the Morganatic ! 
thundered the Captain. 

Here the Chief Steward, Letitia Swan, spoke up... 

- I knew there was a studio on that terrace. I 
spied it out one day from the cross-trees and informed 
Mrs. Stowe. She said it belonged to an artist, a Mr. 
Plummer, and that he hung out in Algiers or some out- 
landish place. 

- Mr. Morgan would never have another man’s 
property right in the centre of his grounds. This studio 
must be on board the Morganatic, and the Man shall 
be landed at once. 

- I think he really owns the property, put in the 
Chief Engineer, Charlotte Gaylord, slightly blushing. 
I am acquainted with Mr. Plummer. I met him two 
years ago in Chicago, and I have heard him speak oft- 
en of the place. It seems he and Mr. Morgan are great 
friends. In fact, the plan was, he was to teach in their 
art school, 

- Then he is not really on board, decided the Mate. 

-Man Overboard! chirped the Midshipman... I 

must take a look at him. Brown, you say? I’m sorry. 
I prefer them black. 

- I prefer all colors, proclaimed Tessie, jumping 
up, Come, Trix, let us cast him a line. 


* Midshipman, Second Class, commanded the 
Captain, I must forbid your going on the lower deck. 
It isn’t.., It isn’t - 

- Sanitary, suggested Mrs. Duke. 

- Thank you, but it appears we have been struck : 
amidships by an inferior craft, and her crew is wash- 
ing athwart our bunkers. 

- And may expose us to a contagious disease... 
laughed the First Class Passenger. 

- I commission the Chief Steward to arrange this 
matter, announced the Captain, and keep the Man 
from scaling our mizzen. Miss Howard, did you give 
him any encouragement? 

- Not the slightest, Sir. We only laughed, and 
chatted on indifferent matters: I think it was chiefly 
the climate and the weather. 

- And did the Man say anything about returning 
to Algiers? 

- Nothing. But he seemed to be unpacking. There 
was a yellow straw clinging to his beard. 

- May I ask, Miss Gaylord, and all eyes were now 
turned to the self-conscious Engineer... Do you know 
of anything vicious about this Man? 

- You are aware already that he smokes, began 
Miss Gaylord; I think he does not chew, nor go to 
the movies. I have known, however, of his attending 
one reception. I can’t think of anything else. 

- Is he what is called a gay deceiver? 

- They all are, interrupted the Chief Steward sen- 
tentiously. 


- Is he one who could be frightened away by petty - 
coats?... in case we made a rush and altogether? 

The Chief Engineer shook her head smilingly... 

- He adores the sex: as they say in the old novels. 

- The females! raved Letitia Swan, getting up and 
pacing the floor. There is nothing that riles my blood 
more than to read those early Victorian novels where 
women are called the sex and the females. 

- Brown... mused the Captain... Sylvia, just 
what do you mean to convey by brown? 

- Corduroys, I think it was. No: it must have 
been khaki, or tweed. Still, it had the effect of being 
corduroys. 

- But hair, and eyes, and beard? 

- Eyes, as you know are evasive. Still, his were 
pervasively brown. 

- Light brown, or dark - I mean the beard? 

- Light brown, inclined to golden... also the eyes. 

- Dangerous, Matey, dangerous! Your eyes are 
brown, and - 

- But my hair is dusty, and his was sunlit. 

-Enough! Enough! No more before the young 

ladies. We will now discuss his real-estate-ic rights. 

- There is no question as to the clearness of his 
title, explained the Chief Engineer. Indeed he is on his 
native heath. It was his father’s homestead that was 
purchased by Mr. Morgan, this scion reserving the old 
farm-house for a studio, but giving option in case he 
ever sells. It is possible that he is planning to sell now, 
and this packing business portends a return to Algeria. 
29 


- Straw in the beard is almost as bad as egg: re- 
marked the Purser; and I swear I will never marry a 
man with a beard, for fear some morning at breakfast.. 
Oh, Horrors! 

They all laughed at her grimace, and the party 
gradually broke up, separating into pairs, save for the 
Doctor who went quietly back alone to her microscope. 

The Midshipman and the Second Class Passenger 
were the first two to slip out of the room. They stole 
furtively across the back lawn, and descended the hill 
toward the eucalyptus grove. 

- What a commotion about a mere man! began 
Tes sie, I believe Miss Cody is more curious about him 
than any of them, although she puts up such a protest. 
Perhaps she is jealous of Miss Howard. 

- I think Mrs. Swan is the most curious, consid- 
ered Beatrice. I am always suspicious of those man- 
haters. 

- Man-eaters would be a better name for them . . . 
sharks. 

- I like men, and I don’t care who knows it. And 
it will be pleasant to see one occasionally. Johnny and 
Ben are all right, but an older man will sort of keep us 
steady. 

-Now, I won’t hear a word against our boys!... 
We must stop at the tryst to get our cake. 

- Did Mrs. Stowe ask any questions? 

- Not a word more than I told her. Mother knows. 
She likes me to have beaux. It leaves her more free 
for her own flirtations. 

30 


They stopped at a large live-oak near their drive- 
way and proceeded to take from its hollow trunk a 
small sponge-cake neatly wrapped in a napkin and 
swarming with ants, which they brushed off unconcer- 
nedly enough. 

- Watch out that old cat isn’t spying, warned Tes- 
sie. Keep the pepper tree between you and her win- 
dow . 

- She pretends she hates pepper trees. I heard her 
going on about them with Mr. Morgan. I believe she 
is trying to get him to cut them down so she can keep 
watch of the road. 

- Not much use, 1 should think, when men are 
forbidden to come up. What a rule! As if this was 
a convent! All the same, you and I know how to 
dodge them. We haven’t been in boarding-school for 
nothing. 

- Which do >ou like best? asked Beatrice frankly. 

- Oh, Ben: he’s more boyish: and not sentimental. 

- Johnny is fond of poetry... but, so am I. 

- I prefer larks, said the imperturbable Tess. 

- Well, you take Ben and I’ll take Johnny. How 
stupid they have to paint in the morning! 

- But moonlight walks, rhy dear girl, in the can- 
yon ! Anyway, you plaj r for Cecily in the morning. 
As for me, I like to sleep till nine thirty. Mother says 
I’m lazy. I guess she’s right. 

By this time they had traversed the eucalyptus 
grove and arrived at the confines of the estate. They 
leaned over the low wall and looked up the narrow, 
81 


dusty road toward the mountains. Evidently thej^ 
would not be disappointed, for two j^oung artists were 
soon to return to their studio and a sponge-cake that 
was promised them for tea. 

Mrs. Duke had gone upstairs with Miss Gaylord... 
Being fellow artists, it was natural they should be to- 
gether. There were other matters besides art now that 
interested them, though the semblance of the theme 
was maintained by both. The older woman showed 
less reticence than the younger. Also, she had all to 
gain and naught to lose. 

- Is this Joseph Plummer the portrait painter that 
was exhibiting in the Middle West some years ago? 1 
remember a show in St. Louis. 

- I think he may have exhibited there; I am not 
sure. He has had several shows in Chicago. 

- Influenced somewhat by Whistler and Chavannes? 

- I should hardly say influenced... 

- I remember one, a nude asleep on a divan, 
her head down, her hair spread out on the rug like a 
shower of jewels. 

- Yes: that picture created quite a sensation, though 
1 think his portraits really better. 

- I love the nude... when well painted. I suppose 
that is because I am a sculptor. 

- I thought his handling of that one a little gum- 
my. 

- Too much sentimentalized over perhaps, but well 
studied. The nude should be classic, unconcious. Now I 
think of it I met this Mr. Plummer at a reception given 
82 


iii his hontior by the Woman’s Club. 

- He is quite a hand to play the social game for 
money. 

- My dear, we all must play it, if we are to get on. 

- For my part L absolutely refuse. I would rather 
starve in my garret. 

- Well you have selected a pleasant garret to starve 
in, I confess, I think your balcony here offers the prize 
view of all the windows. 

- It was selfish of me to take it, 1 know. But 1 was 
the first here and, in a way, I helped Mrs. Stowe get the 
others. You would think , to hear Mrs. Swan talk, that 
she did it all. But she has to talk to make a showing 
since she is a pensioner of Mr. Morgan. 

- Yes? 1 thought so. I know those women. Always 
berating t lie men and living off of them, and never giv- 
ing anything in return; very probably because they 
haven’t anything that the men want. 

- Charlotte Gaylord was slightly shocked but not 
displeased. 

- I wonder what she will make of her mission to 
Mr. Plummer? she speculated. 

- Surely she won’t undertake that. Miss Cody only 
meant it as a joke. 

- Miss Cody may have her reasons, who knows, hid- 
den from herself beneath her bluff? 

- Oh, she is so conceited with her mania to be clev- 
er!., why don’t you set things straight with Mr. Plum- 
mer? 

- Set things straight? 

QQ 

Of) 


- I mean, tell him we’ve not a hen roost of femin- 
ists up here. He can walk in our garden if he wants to. 

- Oh, he has a garden of his own! 

- Yes, you have been there. You have seen it. 

-No, but I have heard him speak of it in Chicago. 

He has a court-yard and a fountain rather English. 

- You surely mean to see him here to allow him to 
call on you. It’s all piffle having these rules about men. 

- 1 shall meet him at dinner this evening. Mr. Mor- 
gan has been thoughtful enough to ask me. But no; I 
prefer to let the rules stand and a man hates to be in- 
vited with a lot of women. 

- I thought, from what you said, that he liked it. 
Well, I mean to ask him to walk with me at least and 
if he doesn’t call here, I’ll call there. I think there 
should be freedom among artists. 

Mrs. Duke went off to her hut and decided to dress 
early for dinner; after that she might stroll along the 
lower terrace, just to show Captain Cody she was not 
subject to her orders except in fun. 

- As for Charlotte Gaylord, for all her shyness, she 
said aloud, it’s plain she wants to marry Joseph Plum- 
mer. 

Letitia Swan did not go to the lower terrace as she 
had jestingly been commissioned by Captain Cody. In- 
stead she went with Cecily Blount to her hut, for she 
knew that Beatrice Knox was off with Tessie and she 
would have the dancer to herself until dinner. Mrs. 
Swan was one of these nervous people who demand a 
companion, at least she was in one of these nervous states 
34 


which many people get into a certain period of their 
lives, and they are not for a moment sufficient unto 
themselves. Tt pleased her now to be with Cecily Blount, 
she liked to wait on her, advise her, absorb her. She 
was trying to write a poem on her dancing, but it was 
so difficult to get the rhythm that would express it. 
Words, adjectives, she could think of a plenty but they 
would not be fitted into proper rhythm. Meanwhile she 
could study her in her room. A Model Resting, was the 
title of a poem she had also in mind, but could not get 
beyond the first line which was: 

-Psyche, resting between one thought and another. 

As for Cecily Blount, she was lazy about her room, 
all her energy went into her dancing and she liked 
to have someone to pick up after her, at her bath... 
even to give her massage. There were no accommo- 
dations here for a maid and Cecily, though she did not 
admit it, could hardly afford one. She took Mrs. Swan 
rather impersonally, in fact looked upon her as a gossip- 
ing elderly woman. She was curious about some things 
about men, and Mrs. Swan was never tired of condemn- 
ing men. She would even go into startling details at 
times which gave Cecily thrills of anticipating pleasure. 
For, though a dancer, Cecily still waited her first admir- 
er, but then, she had not yet made her debut. 

- Are you going down to warn that man to keep 
off our grounds as the Captain commissioned you? she 
asked laughingly. 

-I may accept the commission, replied Mrs. Swan, 
but I propose to sail my own course in going about it 


- And? 

- I shall speak to Mr. Morgan, of course, and he 
will give the other to understand. 

- The other? 

- Mr. Plummer, of course, I hate his name. Mr. 
Swan, you know, was a sanitary engineer and they al- 
ways called him the plumber. 

" But this plumber is probably a gentleman. 

- My dear girl, all men are gentlemen at the begin- 
ning. But when they get a woman in their power they 
are brutes. 

Cecily thrilled with the thought of taking the risk, 
but she only said to Mrs. Swan: 

- You can’t very well tell Mr. Morgan to ask his 
friend not to live in his own house. 

- Oh, I am not such a ninny as that. But let him 
keep to his own house, is all I wish. It is awkward hav- 
ing a house in our garden. I suppose he will be smirk- 
ing at the gate. 

- Miss Howard seemed to find him quite agreeable, 
and Miss Gaylord seems to know him very well. She 
has been invited by Mr. Morgan to have dinner with 
him. 

- Has she? Well, it’s curious Mr. Morgan did not 
ask me too. I have always been asked before with Char- 
lotte. 

- It was probably out of consideration for Mr. Plum- 
mer. Friends, you know. Did she say his name was 
William? 

- Now Miss Cecily , be it said by way of veracity, 

36 


had heard very distinctly his name was Joseph. She had 
even been going over the diminutives in her mind. Joe, 
Josey, Joey. She threw out Joey. It did not go with a 
beard. She was glad that he wore a beard but wished it 
were yellow. 

- Joseph and be damned to him, snapped Mrs. Le- 
titia. 

- What was Mr. Swan’s name? You never told me 
said Cecily carefully covering her back. 

- Joe. Joe Swan. How I hate it. Think of me Mrs. 
Joe Swan. Ugh! I wish I’d taken back my maiden 
name. But it didn’t have the right balance for a poet. 

- What was it? 

- Fawcett. It’s my curse to be lined up with 
plumbing. Even now I am wiping a joint. 

She was engaged in rubbing alcohol on the dan- 
cer’s white knee. 

- Letitia Fawcett, sounded Miss Blount. 

-Not musical, is it? croaked the poetess, but Letitia 
Swan has smooth sailing at least. 

- It’s beautiful. You must dedicate your first vol- 
ume to me. Cecily Blount, Letitia Swan. The names 
sound well together. 

- I wonder how well Charlotte knows this man? She 
has never peeped about him to me. I’ll bet dollars to 
doughnuts she’s met Mr. Morgan through him. I must 
ask her how she came to know Morgan. 

- I should think Mr. Morgan would have told you. 
You knew him years before he met Miss Gaylord, didn’t 
you? 


- Yes but not intimately, I couldn’t get along with 
his wife. 

- I wonder if Mr. Plummer is married. 

- Depend upon it, he has wives enough in Europe. 
Maybe not by benefit of clergy 

- One can only have one by benefit of clergy, can’t 
one? and Miss Cecily put out the other knee. 

- Plummer, Plummer, no; I have never heard her 
or Mr. Morgan, speak of Plummer, but he always talks 
literature to me. 

- Maybe he will help you publish your first volume. 

- Maybe. Mrs. Swan’s voice was sarcastic. 

- I understand he is very helpful to some artists. 

- My dear Cecily, and Mrs. Letitia stood straight 
up. The men will give you bed and board if there is no 
sacrifice. But your clothes and your art... no never 
so much as a cent. 

- Now I have been told it was just those things they 
would give. 

- To a dancer, maybe, not to a poet. 

^ But he likes your poems. He told me. 

- Liking and paying are two different things. But 
it’s sly of Charlotte not to tell me of this Plummer. 

- Put him out of your thoughts, said Cecily sooth- 
ingly. But she stowed him away cosily in hers. She re- 
solved to take a ramble tonight, by moonlight; and she 
would stroll down the lower terrace road about ten. Or 
would he return with Miss Gaylord in the motor? She 
decided on the whole he would walk. It was a short cut 
from the public road up to his studio. 

38 


- So we are to have a romance after all for my nov- 
el, began Miss Cody puffing lazily at her cigarette. 

- The man, you mean, Cora? asked Sylvia. 

- The man and Miss Gaylord, of course. I wonder- 
ed what brought her all the way from Chicago? 

- Might he not have stopped thereon his way from 
New-York if there were a romance, as you say, on the 
carpet. 

- My darling, you are too generous altogether. It is 
Charlotte who has set her cap for Joe. For a dollar I’d 
enter the course against Charlotte. 

- Confess, Cody, you are simply pining fora flirta- 
tion, having deprived yourself of men’s society for a 
week. 

- It’s nine days and three quarters, Sylvia dear. 

- Then it will be ten days by tomorrow. You will 
hardly visit him this evening, I fancy. 

-I’d make you take me down there this instant if 
all those females weren’t watching. You could say you 
had dropped your handkerchief or something. 

- Is that all your imagination can furnish... for 
your novel? 

- Now you mention the novel, I must pause Would 
a rampant flirtation with a rival thrown in be favorable 
or derogatory to the novel. 

- Why write a poem when you can live one? 

- There speaks the woman, Matey, but never the 
artist. No, let little Charlotte have her fling. 

- Are you so sure of the machinations of Miss Gay- 
lord? 


- Matey, didn’t you see her color and hesitate? I 
know women, the sex, I should say too well. Damn 
that oldho3 r den, Mrs. Swan, I wish she wouldn’t swear. 
Swearing should be indulged in only by ladies. 

- Are you going to deny gentlemen their suste- 
nance? 

- Gentlemen and men swear, of course, but females 
should be ladies if they take to blasphemy. Otherwise, 
they are despicably low and vulgar. 

- I do feel she’s trespassing on your rights, dear. 

- As is also our Chief Engineer, not that Miss Gay- 
lord swears, my dear, but she is jealous because I was 
chosen Captain. I feel like cutting her hero to he even. 
Is he handsome, Matey? Speak to me honest. 

- He is handsome as a big blond beast. I swear it. 

- Stupid or pert? 

- Stupid, except for his eyes. 

- Give me a stupid man with eyes, for a flirtation 
I mean, a husband should be pig-eyed. 

- He has a smile, Cody. 

- Now, here, no love making for y on. You are not 
yet recovered from your recent affair. 

- Oh, Cody! 

- I mean it. Though it was brutal of me to mention 
it. I am brutal. But if I thought, Matey, you were go- 
ing to fall for this blond beast I would wish you back 
in New-York in a minute. 

. Never fear, Cody, I was egging you on. 

-Those women will swarm down there like flies. 
You and I will stick to the quarter deck, Matey. 

40 


- Like two goddesses we will rail at the weaknesses 
of mortals. 

- Goddesses have been in trouble before you. 

- Maybe he will take the role of a god. He didn’t 
impress me as one that would run after women. 

- But women will run after him, What won’t wo- 
men run after if it wears trousers? And Lady Charlotte 
is no exception, I can tell you. She’ll play on his pity, 
I know her kind. Did he give evidence of any bowels 
of compassion? 

- Nary a bowel, Cody. He is vain. 

- That’s just as bad, for vanity induces pity if per- 
sistent. From self-pity, it transfers the- vice to others. 

- 1 marvel you do not light on Mrs. Duke. 

- Oh, she will cast her life-preserver, of course. 
But Miss Charlotte will try him with a drag net.... 
dark hair dressed low, and unshed tears. I wonder 
she has not landed him already. Probabably he fled 
to Africa to escape, and now, like all fools, returns 
again . 

- You’d better bind a wet tow r el on your head and 
finish your novel before morning. I foresee it will be 
all up with literature after this. 

- Now you know, Matey, when I talk I don’t act. 
I am going out on the dog watch to take an observation. 

- And I will remain in larboard bow to read. I 
wonder what Mrs. Duke will wear tonight? 

- Watermelon vines with pumpkins in her hair. 
Hoorn} 7 and a tiger for the Middle West. 

And this is what Sylvia Howard thought at her 


41 


book as her gaze soon sought the window: 

How beautiful, how exquisitely beautiful, is this 
place! I wonder why Cody is so excited? Now, I 
think Charlotte Gaylord is very nice, but I wouldn’t 
whisper a word to Cody, she’s so jealous. I really wish 
however, she liked more women. She likes Beatrice 
Knox and Tessie, but we all do. I like, even, Mrs. 
Swan. Cody would say, that’s against her. I don’t 
like Miss Blount though, so there! Well, it’s a pity 
a man should come in and set up such a commotion. 
And nobody except me has even seen him yet. And I 
am the one that is really undisturbed Marion Cody 
is always that way. But the trouble with her is, she 
doesn’t get over it. Some people are a flash in the pan, 
but she is one continual gunpowder-plot. And she 
will like Mr. Plummer, I am sure. He is of that active 
indolent type that peculiarly aggravates her. She won’t 
rest till she has him trailing at her skirts; and he 
looks the kind that stubbornly refuses to trail. He 
would show up very handsome at her feet, but Cody 
should marry a slender, lisping blond. This one is too 
burly, too brown. I imagine he has spent much of his 
time at sea... Oh, the sea, how wonderful it is today!., 
a prairie of turquoise and emerald that extends to the 
remote Pacific islands ! Cody and I must go to Samoa 
before we marry. I can’t think of my Captain married 
but she will be : no doubt she will be married and have 
a family before I so much as find another admirer. I 
hope she will get a banker, or a broker: something 
solid that sticks to his office hours, and furnishes plenty 
42 


for dress. She will have her royalties beside, but they 
will go for jewels and pin money. Dear old Captain, 
you will sail some stormy seas, once aboard your really 
royal frigate. He won’t do, Mr. Plummer... he really 
won’t. I must make Cody believe Miss Gaylord hates 
him. .. 

Thus she drifted on in her thoughts, over +h« 
placid mystery of the horizon. 

Marion Cody, sitting on the dog watch, a m i 
they had given to a boulder that commanded the point 
of their hill and looked east and southward over the 
wide sea, Marion Cody was thinking more about Syl- 
via Howard than she was of the characters and plot of 
her novel.. . 

- Little Sylvia is taken with that man!... She cast 
an indignant look toward the fig trees that concealed 
his studio. I can tell by that under-light in her eyes; 

I have seen it before and have good cause to remember. 
Fortunately, Sydney Latham was wheedled away by 
that wax-faced baby-doll, Sally Moyne. He never 
would have made Sylvia happy... Never! I wish she 
would give up poets and artists and fall in love with a 
steady-going, conventional creature; not a business- 
man, they are too crude, but a clergyman, or a col- 
lege professor. The trouble with clergymen is, they 
are such a flock of sap-heads, and college professors 
havn't enough juice in them to make a frappe. Oh, 
the men, the men, the men! If clever men were only 
half as plentiful as clever women! But w^hen you do 
encounter a clever one, lie’s nasty. This Plummer 
43 


one is probably nasty. They always manage to cover 
it up till they have hooked Sylvia. Sylvia is such a 
guileless little saint, herself, that she thinks all the 
men are what they think they are. I must nip this 
Plummer bud with a frost; A drouth may be more 
effective with him. I know the artist type: egotistic, 
cruel, suave. I think I shall make him love me in- 
stead. That will save Sylvia, amuse me - and give him 
what he deserves. Yes, that was my intuition the mo- 
ment I saw that light in her eyes. I am never far wrong 
in my intuition. Sylvia is a dear, and must be saved. 

Still another woman was gazing at the sea, and 
that was the Doctor who sat in her room over her mi- 
croscope. She had her table in front of her window 
for the light, and she had but to lift her head to get 
the view. She was working on investigations of the di- 
atom : a monograph on their individuality, or display 
of self-will as especially evidenced in reproduction. 

Priscilla Maxwell was one of that numerous group 
of women who have taken up the higher education. 
Endowed with keen wits, a modest income and an un- 
tiring energy she had been, at the age of eighteen, an 
exceedingly sparkling fresh graduate. Almost imper- 
ceptibly to herself, she had grown sharp and thin with 
years of study and teaching in a girls’ college, till 
finding herself at forty an ‘old maid’, she had resigned 
her position in a moment of panic and struck out in 
the world in search of adventure. Unfortunately, ad- 
venture, like valor, flees away from those who go out 
especially to seek it. Indeed, should it chance to en- 
4 


counter her (in the form of some college professor) it 
would not recognize her prim ways and severe person 
as a favorable culture. She had not been with men, 
she had scarcely thought of men for twenty years. 
Even before that age, she had not experienced a genu- 
ine passion. At forty a great timidity overcame her 
which speedily gave way to alarm. All the life-forms 
she had been working with in biology seemed so inter- 
estingly intent on reproduction that she had forgotten 
to apply the principle to her own organization, which 
now was fast approaching its climacteric. The scien- 
tific men she was now thrown with in the laboratories 
and the societies of which she soon became a member, 
were either not interested in these problems themselves 
or did not correlate them with her particular person. 
So it came, after five years of futile waiting, she had 
gone into retirement in California. She had been in 
this region two more years and scarcely knew a man in 
all her acquaintance for more than a polite conversa- 
tion. Not rich enough to attract a mercenary bachelor, 
not poor enough to need to seek a husband, there was 
little stimulus other than the sexual to give her effort, 
and that had been so long denied or smothered that it 
could not direct her in any mode of action, though at 
the disconsolate age of forty seven seemed giving her 
more unhappiness than she deserved, as her neglect of 
it had never been intentional. 

She was not unattractive - quite the contrary. She 
had a refined face, an exceedingly alert and lithe grace- 
ful carriage... In repose, she was a bit meaningless, 
45 


pedagogical, but on foot or on horseback, she had mo- 
tion and a style that was as girlish as Miss Knox, a 
bird-like lightness that even Tessie could not rival. 

She had accepted the horse-play, or rather the 
ship-play of the Morganatic somewhat scornfully. On 
the whole, she was indifferent to the question of men. 
But now when the electric shock had gone through the 
group that there was one at their very ship’s side, as it 
were, she had experienced its thrill as much as any, 
and though she tried to keep her eyes on her micro- 
scope, they were constantly playing truant on the sea. 
She did not look toward the fig trees, like Miss Cody. 
She would have thought such glances brazen, unfemi- 
nine. But she did look out, far out to the horizon, 
and wide visions, as from flight, were in her soul. 


CHAPTER III 


The Passengers 


Breakfast on board the Morganatic was usually a state- 
room affair. The cabin stewardesses, Blanche and Rose 
brought coffee and rolls to the huts if requested. Miss 
Knox, however, with midshipman-like modesty usually 
saved them that trouble and came over to join the En- 
gineer and the Doctor in the dining-room where eggs 
could be boiled and toast made over the alcohol lamp 
on the table. It was the custom of the poetess to sleep 
late and have her coffee brought to her bed. But the 
following morning seemed to make a general change, for 
it was Miss Gaylord who took her coffee in bed ; and 
the Chief Steward and all the hut occupants assembled 
bright and early in the dining-room. As they moved 
about freely between table and sideboard, the conversa- 
tion was frequently desultory and interrupted. 

- Why doesn’t Charlotte come down and tell us 
about her dinner party? fumed Mrs. Swan. Usually 
48 


she’s up with the sunrise. 

- What dinner party was that? asked Miss Cody. 

- Why, I thought everybody knew! sighed the 
poetess, rolling this delicious bit of gossip beneath her 
tongue. She was invited alone to dine with Mr. Morgan 
of course the Man was to be of the party. 

- The Plummer? Captain Cody would be facetious. 

- He shows a judgment of plums if he picks Char- 
lotte, it was Midshipman Beatrice who made this com- 
ment. 

- I wish she’d hurry and tell us what he is like. 
Cecily Blount was quite steaming with interest. 

- She’s a prejudiced witness, odserved the Captain. 
She’s known him since he wore pinafores, I fancy. 

- Two years, Sir, corrected the Chief Steward. 

- Long enough to know his babyhood tricks just 
the same, said the Captain coldly. 

- Now, I told you all yesterday, complained Sylvia, 
and neither am I a prejudiced witness. Brown hair, 
brown eyes, brown beard, brown corduroys, brown 
stockings: a symphony in brown, as Whistler puts it. 

- He might be altogether different in a dinner coat. 
Black and white might take all his symphonies from 
him, said Captain Cody. 

- I don’t know w 7 hat he might be in clothes, said 
Mrs. Irene Duke, the First Class Passenger, with delib- 
erate mischief. But I can give you a description of him 
without them, for v r hen I called he "was taking his bath. 

-You called? they all gasped but not one of them 
asked for the description which the sculptor none the less 
49 


gave. 

- Skin rosy but not ruddy, of fine texture, a manly 
figure, slightly rounded in the shoulders, a stalwart 
chest, well braced loins, and sinewy legs. His striking 
characteristic is the poise of his head, something indo- 
lent and with all that of defiance. 

- I did not know you were given to sea bathing so 
early in the morning, remarked Captain Cody some- 
what coldly. 

- Sea bathing not at all. A dip in his own fountain 
in his court-yard. It was last evening, he was dressing 
for dinner. In order that the company may not be ut- 
terly shocked, I will state that before stepping forward 
to receive me he had the propriety to put on a pink 
bath robe and gird a long towel around his waist. Also 
he slipped on some bamboo sandals. I assure you he 
was a symphony in pink and gold. 

The pause gave way to dead silence, but Mrs. Duke 
was not perturbed and went on. 

- I had used up my modeling wax on my figure 
and it occured to me that possibly he might have some. 
It is so trying to wait the express from Los Angeles. 

- But he didn’t, smiled Miss Cody cuttingly. 

- To my own surprise he actually did. I have al- 
ready used up the half of it. He doesn’t model himself, 
but he had a friend there once who left some. I am 
really the luckiest woman in the world. 

- Evidently he is not the luckiest man, to be inter- 
rupted at so inopportune a moment. 

- Oh, he saw I was a sculptor and didn’t mind. He 


50 


really is a very charming fellow. 

- So it appears... to take one’s bath in the front 
yard must imply a man of some charm. 

One of the maids came for Miss Gaylord’s coffee, 
and Mrs. Swan urgently offered to take it up. She was 
eager to tell the news to dear Charlotte and while loth 
to miss the conversation in the dining-room she rightly 
judged from the frigidity of the temperature that the 
party would soon be broken up. 

- How fortunate I got up early, she was congratula- 
ting herself. I was sure that something would be brew- 
ing. I must talk to Cecily afterward and perhaps the 
Doctor. The Captain shows signs of a storm. 

Charlotte Gaylord had been awake for two hours 
musing over the events of last evening. She awoke with 
the joyous thought that Joe was the same as she had 
known him two years ago and sobered down to serious- 
ly considering how he was different. There was even 
more of that musical quality of affection in his voice. 
There was more of that upward appeal in his shining 
eyes. He was more attentive to her than he had ever 
been before, but it was with tenderness of reminiscence 
rather than of the present. Still, he was considerate of 
the present for her too. Where was it that he was so 
puzzlingly different? 

She tried to go over all that he had been when 
they had studios adjoining each other. First he had 
been formal, gracious, shy, that was one stage she al- 
ways felt sure of. Then came the merry stage, half bois- 
terous, he had been rude oftentimes and of course she 
51 


had been offended. Men have no right to be rude to. a 
woman. Yes she had stood up for her rights... He had 
always met her withdrawal with assured indifference, 
though she knew he really cared. That proved he was 
looking to the future, and it gave her pleasure because 
she already loved him. No, she was not a heroine in 
an old-fashioned novel who dared not be in love before 
the proposal. She was a heroine in a modern novel 
instead, though she would have been enraged if anyone 
had told her so. Anyway she had liked Joe when he 
was rough and it was in that stage that she began to 
call him Joe. Before he had been Mr. Plummer. In 
that stage she had thought Gaylord a pretty name. 

Then came the day when he had found her crying 
and she had confessed to him that she could not pay 
her rent. He had no money at that time either but he 
took her handkerchief and wiped her eyes and they 
went and pawned his gold watch... and yes he had giv- 
en her a kiss. Of this stage she was never quite sure. 
Did he love her? Did she really love him? During that 
stage it was more as if they had been brother and sis- 
ter. It was when he began to flirt with Genevieve that 
she began to love him, and yes... that was a humil- 
iating period. Everybody said she was jealous. But it 
wasn’t jealousy it was indignation at his treason. It 
was treason in Genevieve, too, w T ho had been her dear- 
est friend. In that stage she coveted the name of Char- 
lotte Plummer. She wanted to flourish his card in that 
brazen wretch’s face, even though she cast it in the 
mud a moment after. Then he had come to California. 
52 


They had not written. Then a year abroad, and now 
they were here. 

She had followed on his trail. She had yearned for 
it. But she had not followed him. His arrival was a sur- 
prise. What she longed to know was whether he had 
followed her. 

As she went over each detail of the dinner party... 
she concluded that he did not know himself. He knew 
now that she loved him. That was in his looks. Perhaps 
he got it from hers. No matter! She had thrown that 
modesty to the winds. She was quite reckless. She 
would play with an open hand. And his cards were they 
also on the table? It was as if they were and he realized 
she had lost and he was sorry for her, almost. till he 
loved her. 

At this point she was thinking of his eyes, of that 
earnest attentive graciousness and formal sympathy. 
She gave herself a long time to dwell on this and then 
she called down the speaking tube and asked Blanche to 
bring her coffee and then, in came Mrs. Swan bustling 
and sympathetic. 

- The scandal of the season! she began. Mrs. Duke 
yesterday afternoon, as soon as she heard that man was 
there, went down to his studio on some pretext or oth- 
er and surprised him while he was taking a bath in the 
fountain, and what does she do but walk in and talk 
to him just the same. 

Miss Gaylord smiled placidly as she sipped her cof- 
fee, while the Steward enlarged on the conversation in 
the dining room. 


- Was Miss Blount there? she finally asked. 

- Cecily? Oh yes. But only Miss Cody talked. The 
rest of us were gasping, positively gasping. 

- I am sure Mrs. Duke enjoyed the effect. She 
loves to create a sensation. If she could only do it with 
her art as well as she does with society, she would be a 
great success, as would Miss Cody. 

- But aren’t you horrified Charlotte? Appalled? 
I don’t belong to society but when I picture that man 
really the blood runs cold in my veins. 

- He is not a monster, said Miss Gaylord irritably. 
I don’t see why anyone should be horrified. Evidently 
Mrs. Duke was not. Was Miss Blount horrified also? 

- Cecily? I haven’t seen her alone. Of course we 
didn’t speak of it in the dining room. Miss Maxwell 
simply rose and left the room. You’d have thought she 
was walking in a trance. 

- I think people don’t usually walk in trances. 

- Ha! Ha! But I admire the cool way you take it. 
You don’t show even astonishment. You’re wonderful. 

- The fact is, I heard the story last night. Mr. 
Plummer told it at the table. He made it seem very 
amusing. Of course neither of them lose anything in 
the telling. 

- Wasn’t Mr. Morgan shocked? 

- Mr. Morgan likes a good story as well as any. 
Mr. Quinn was interested psychologically. 

- The Misogynist, was he there too? 

- Miss Cody’s nickname is becoming into general 

use. 

54 


- For my part I don’t think it fits him either. I 
think he is shy... Sleek and shy. But the Misogynist 
is such a good word to say. It rolls so deliciously under 
the tongue. 

- Miss Cody no doubt, thinks that if a man dislikes 
her he also dislikes all other women. 

- But the Misogynist doesn’t dislike the Captain. 
He always seeks her out at a party. And wasn’t he up 
yesterday to take her out riding and isn’t she invited to 
his study for tea today? 

- Perhaps that is because he is psychological or per- 
haps, as you suggest, he is sleek and shy. 

- Well sleek doesn’t describe his outward appear- 
ance, fuzzy hair, fuzzy beard, fuzzy manners. 

- What does Miss Blount think of him? 

- Cecily? Oh, she finds him charming. For my 
part, I can’t see ‘charming’ in any man. Though he 
is a good talker when he wants to be. 

- I wonder if she finds Mr. Plummer charming. 

- Why, she has not seen him. He only came yes- 
terday ! 

- She was waiting for him last night on the road 
up to his studio. Unfortunately he had asked me to 
walk up with him, and we sent the car up the front 
drive alone. 

The Steward gave a long, musical whistle. The note 
had better quality than her voice. 

- Well! she exclaimed at the end. The shy little 
minx! I declare! 

- We all three had a pleasant walk home in the 


moonlight. Of course it was 1 she came out to meet. 

- Did she seem to like him? asked Letitia Swan 
with some anxiety. 

- She was spirited. Unusually so for the occasion. 

- Moonlight drives her mad with joy. It does me. 
It’s curious though she didn’t take me with her. 

- No doubt she will give you a good reason. 

- Oh, yes. I must go and see her. Are you tired? 

- Only lazy. I shall soon be getting up. 

- They all missed you at breakfast, they did really. 
Do you know, I think they all came to hear about that 
man. 

- Well, it seems that Mrs. Duke did not allow them 
to be disappointed. 

- It’s simply wonderful how you take it, simply 
wonderful. 

- Why, I am not married to him! Miss Gaylord 
was somewhat nettled. 

- It was not him, dear, I was thinking of: it was 
the ladies. 

- I think the ladies can take care of themselves. 

- Well, certainly Irene Duke can and Tessie. For 
my part I wish they were out of the house. They don’t 
fit in with the rest of us at all. They have no literary 
taste whatever. 

- You’d better find out what Miss Blount thinks 
about it. 

- Cecily? Yes. I must go and see. You don’t want 
any more coffee? 

- No, thank you, dear. But when Mrs. Swan was 

56 


gone she called down the tube to Blanche for another 
cup. 

- Did you ever hear of such an outrageous perform- 
ance? began the Steward as she stalked into Cecily 
Blount’s room where the other occupant of the hut was 
also visiting, both girls extended on the window seats. 

- We were just talking about it, said Beatrice 
Knox. Cecily and I have decided it is only funny. 

- Do you mean to say, you would walk in on a man 
at his hath? 

- He needn’t have been taking it in the front yard. 
He knew there might be ladies passing by. 

- But not calling! He had the gate shut. 

- Evidently it wasn’t locked, or Mrs. Duke couldn’t 
have walked in. 

- She ought to have turned away at once. 

- That would have ended the affair much more 
awkwardly than it turned out. 

- Do you mean to say that you - gasped, Mrs. Swan 

- Oh, that is another matter. I should have 
screamed... fainted... gone into epilepsy... anything. 
But I admire Mrs. Duke’s courage all the same. 

- Or her presence of mind, put in Cecily, 

- Do you stand up for such performances, too, Cec- 
ily? Well, I am finding you out! And to go down there 
at ten o’clock. Why didn’t you call me if you wanted 
to take a walk? 

- One likes to be alone when one meets a man, of 
course I mean if the man is a gentleman. Cecily put a 
bold face on the matter. 


- What? Have you seen him too? bantered Miss 
Beatrice. 

- I thought they would come up that way and I 
went down to meet Charlotte, said Cecily coldly. 

- But, my dearie, don’t you know they are in love 
with each other? 

- What if they are? I was not going to break their 
engagement. 

- They aren’t engaged... an old boy-and-girl affair. 
Calf love. I’ve had it myself, remarked the poetess. 
Unfortunately Mr. Swan did not go to Algiers and I, 
like a blooming idiot, let him marry me. 

- What is he like? asked Miss Beatrice. 

- What is he like l My God what is he like! Hear 
her! Mrs. Swan walked the floor in a rage. As if there 
weren’t fifty million others on this continent! As if 
they weren’t all alike... hairy, lascivious, brutal, mak- 
ing low jokes about the most sacred things in nature. 
Ugh! you make me sick. You make me sick. I can’t 
breathe here. Why don’t you air your bed? 

She seized on the coverlets of this article of furni- 
ture and spread them and the sheets out in the sun. 

- Do Beatrice’s too, Letitia, called Miss Blount 
through the window, but Mrs. Swan was so enraged 
she would not heed her but walked away in high dud- 
geon toward the stables. 

In her excitement she hardly realized that she was 
leaving the villa grounds and entering on the domain 
reserved by Mr. Morgan, for he still retained his horses 
for his own use. Allowing only a pony phaeton for 
58 


Mrs. Stowe. 

When Mrs. Swan discovered the Man there, for 
she immediately recognized him as the object of her 
hatred, she realized that he was not on the Ship and 
she had no legal right to accost him. Indeed even though 
her temerity had gone so far she would hardly have 
had time to do so, for he was at that moment leaving 
the stable yard, seated jauntily on one of Mr. Morgan’s 
horses and leading two others, both saddled. In short 
the men had planned a morning ride and as the artist 
was at hand in his studio he had offered to take the 
horses to the club and leave the grooms free for other 
duties. He had skirted the garden by means of a path 
on the lower terrace and so left its denizens uninter- 
rupted. 

- Handsome he is! said the poetess in admiration. 
But the handsome ones are the most troublesome of all. 
At least I’ll have Miss Maxwell left for sane compan- 
ionship and she continued on her feministic walk alone. 

Had she been two minutes earlier at the stable she 
would not have felt so secure about the Doctor. For Miss 
Maxwell having need of some stable refuse for certain 
mould cultures, had encountered the man in the yard, 
and while the grooms were saddling the horses, had 
kept up a conversation with the artist with a sprightli- 
ness that she had hardly thought herself capable. Now 
that she was safely back in her room she was lying on 
a couch reviewing the scene and its impressions. He 
was certainly a very courteous gentleman, old fashioned, 
and given somewhat to formal speeches, but gallant and 


debonair and polished and with a thrill of joy she re- 
flected, he was not too young. Forty and over surely 
she was saying. - And I don’t look a day older myself. 

It was impossible that she could rationalize this 
gentleman with the shocking statements Mrs. Duke had 
made at breakfast. So, with scientific accuracy, she 
ruled out that evidence on the grounds that Mrs. Duke 
was another vulgar woman in the ‘pension’ to oppose 
her, for Dr. Maxwell had little love for Miss Cody... 
a slangy, smoking, swearing, newspaper-woman, was 
what she thought of her, though she always kept such 
thoughts to herself. She overlooked Miss Cody’s foibles, 
partly out of deference to Miss Howard, whom she 
genuinely liked, and partly because she was not natu- 
rally troubled by women, having been accustomed to 
deal with all sorts. 

Oddly enough, the Doctor liked Mrs. Swan, who 
had all the vices of Miss Cody in a much more irascible 
form. Her voice was louder and more strident, her 
blasphemy coarser, her smoking and drinking more 
uncultivated as to taste and enjoyment. She gossiped 
more, she tried to manage people more, and still the 
Doctor liked her and was her friend. It was not un- 
natural therefore that Mrs. Swan should tap at her door 
an hour later after having finished the valiant charge 
of her promenade. It was a little bit unnatural, how- 
ever, that Miss Maxwell should hastily rise from her 
reverie and busily bend over her empty microscope be- 
fore calling out sweetly for the poetess to come in. 

- You are the real comfort of this place, she began 

60 


mildly. Your work at least is not all upset by the ap- 
pearance of a man in the neighborhood, 

- I was about to put in my new slides. Would you 
like to see these newly mounted diatoms? 

The poetess sat down to the microscope with the 
genuine enthusiasm of her nature. 

- Oh, my dear, she remarked after she had finish- 
ed the series, I wish I could arrange my work the way 
you do. But poetry is so different from science. Now, 
yesterda3 T , I had an idea for a delicate little pastel of a 
rose petal. Just a single petal that had fallen on the 
walk, and a white kitten was touching it with its little 
paw. Well, I got the first two lines to my liking, and 
then, what should come into my room but a smell of 
fried onions from the kitchen? Now all I could get out 
of that rose petal was fried onions, fried onions, fried 
onions. The kitten smelled the onions just as I did, 
and went off to the kitchen to gorge itself. How is one 
going to make a poem of fried onions where one has 
only their smell? 

- You should ask the cook to close the back stairs 
door. 

- Precisely what I did, but that set me gabbling 
with the cook. She is a nice body who married a Span- 
iard because he was handsome, and he spent her money 
and now has left her in the lurch. 

- I should think he had her in the lurch when he 
was spending her money and now she might congratu- 
late herself on her freedom. 

- Precisely what I took an hour to tell her, but she 


(>1 


only smiles and says I don’t understand life. I, a 
poet, have her, a cook, tell me that I don’t understand 
life. How can I think of rose petals after that? 

- Why not take your tablet out to a seat in the 
garden and write there? The weather is so secure in 
this climate. 

- Precisely what I am planning to do. But I must 
have a table. I can’t joggle out a poem on my knee. I 
must have a table and sit upright or I can’t think. 

- You should have taken one of the huts while they 
were still vacant. 

- That is what I planned to do at the beginning, 
but the huts are all arranged for two tenants. If I could 
only have an entire hut to myself, one room for my 
study and one for my bed. But I simply can not work 
when I know there is some person near me, with only 
a partition between us. No matter how I may love the 
person, no matter how quiet and sympathetic she may 
be: in fact the more sympathetic she is and the more 
I love her, the more she intrudes herself into my mind. 
That is the reason that I took the back corner room 
here in the house. The maids are all down stairs in the 
morning. But you must remember that the drive way 
is just under my window and that means a constant in- 
terruption. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick 
maker, all go wheeling by and they call out, and I get 
them in my poem. If Mother Goose had not been al- 
ready written I could do that and have my themes cons- 
tantly before me, though I don’t remember any fried 
onions in Mother Goose, I wonder how the authoress 
62 


escaped them. 

- Try the garden... comforted the Doctor after a 
laugh. Come, I will help you carry out this sewing ta- 
ble for your papers. 

- My dear, I must have a table that doesn’t jiggle. 
Poetry, like science, must be built up on a stable foun- 
dation. Now, you have a beautiful table here. But I 
wouldn’t take it from you for the world. Anyway I pre- 
fer my own roll-top desk. I like to draw’ dowm the cov- 
er, lock it, and know my papers will be untouched 
when I am gone. If I had my roll-top desk now in the 
garden, say on the low T er terrace out of hearing and 
feeling of the house! But now r , there has come in that 
man. 

- Man? queried Miss Maxwell quite innocently. 

- Artist, name Plummer, or some such. Wasn’t 
the First Class Passenger disgusting this morning and 
didn’t the Captain put her jolly v r ell where she be- 
longed? 

- I was talking wdth Miss Knox about music. I 
fancy 3 r ou take Mrs. Duke too seriously. 

- My dear, I have to take people seriously, people 
are the material of the w r riter. Mrs. Duke now is my 
diatom. I have her under my microscope. Can’t you 
understand how I am harried? 

- Try a telescope and set the little end tow’ard her. 
You will then get a better sense of scale. 

- If I had such an instrument, it w r ould make my 
fortune. I need something of the sort to shut people 
out. That’s the trouble with me, everything keeps 
08 


crowding in. People are so interesting, and I have 
them all around me. I think this group of people that 
we have here is the most intensely interesting thing 
that ever happened. Each one is the subject for an 
epic. Each moment of each one is the motive for a 
lyric. Contrasts, varieties, shades... I am confused 
with this plethora of riches. Oh, for a desert island 
and a table, and just one person for one moment and 
no more! I could write on that moment for a year. 

- Write a poem on my diatoms, on this one. Look 
at it. Is it not an inspiration? Look! There are the 
two cells approaching each other. What force is it that 
draws them together? 

- Now that is too much! laughed the Chief Stew- 
ard. If you asked me to look in the microscope with 
one eye and keep my other on my tablet for writing, 
I might do it. But now you suggest analogy, meta- 
phor... all the meetings I have ever known go charging 
through my brain. 

- Some critic has said, it is not what the author 
puts in, but what he leaves out, that makes a work of 
art, or destroys it. 

- That’s it! That’s it precisely! I’ll remember 
what you said about the garden, and perhaps I can get 
the gardener to build me a table if I can find the prop- 
er place. If only I could have the lower terrace, but 
after all, that Man can’t occupy it all. I’ll go down and 
look the ground over. He’s out now. I saw him ride 
off from the stables. Three horses, men’s saddles, Mr. 
Morgan and probably the Misogynist, I , hear they’re 
64 


old friends. Well, goodbye, dear; you’re a wonder, 
and no mistake. And I’ll try to do a poem on the dia- 
tom. I’ll do it in free verse: it’s more scientific. . . 
though diatom is a new rhyme for roam ; we used to 
have to limp along wdth home... and that was an ag- 
gravation, for the reader always anticipated the sense. 
Of course there was loam, but unpoetic... always with 
a strong flavor of manure, or mud, if the tears should 
fall on it. 

The Doctor laughed, still busy with her microscope, 
and the Chief Steward drifted restlessly away. 

Captain Cody, as usual, spent an exciting day, 
which had, also as usual, militated against the prog- 
ress of her novel. From breakfast till lunch, she had 
consumed her energy inveighing against the forward- 
ness of Mrs. Duke. From lunch till four o’clock, she 
had been concerned with her toilette for the tea party 
at the Misogynist’s. She had discovered the freckles 
coming out again on her nose, and they alone occupied 
a good hour of attention. Then she had been all aflurry 
in the car as they drove thither wondering whether the 
Man would be present; but this was altogether on ac- 
count of Sylvia, who had been listless and dreamy the 
whole morning. 

- It is the landscape that is getting into my veins.. 
Sylvia had explained in response to her friend’s remon- 
strance. It is a veritable honeymoon of Nature... The 
sea, the hills, the meadows, are so ecstatic! 

- Sylvia, you must not wear pink. It is childish, 


(>> r ) 


and Mr. Morgan does not like it. 

- I thought you liked me in pink, hesitated Sylvia 
slightly breathless. 

- What I like, and what the men like, are two op- 
posites. Wear your pongee with the brown velvet. It 
is more suitable. 

Sylvia donned the garment as instructed; but stuck 
a bunch of carnations in her belt. 

- Nasturtiums would be better, criticised the Cap- 
tain. 

- Oh, their juice is too drippy, objected Sylvia... 

And Marion knew when her criticism should stop. 

The tea party over... The Man had been there... 

they had yet to go through the ceremony of dinner on 
board. - There is more ceremony with only women, 
said Miss Cody, especially with women who are inclin- 
ed to take liberties, like Mrs. Duke. After coffee, the 
pair retired to their hut... to rest, as Captain Cody ex- 
plained... but in reality the day’s exercise was but be- 
ginning, for she had to give a satisfactory analysis of 
the motives of all the people she had met, and she had 
to do this with some display of wit and wisdom. This 
she could only do when she talked; for with Miss Cody 
all thinking meant talking. Her novels were but the 
record of her own spoken comment: their weakness 
being that without the spirited presence of their author 
they were apt to be insipid and without point. But in 
person, she had a vitality that was electric. Her tall, 
commanding figure, her mobile features, rich voice, 
haughty carriage and gay recklessness, were enough to 
66 


make the most insipid utterances savory. Moreover, 
she did say clever things, gay and trenchant; and her 
rich laughter always kept them from seeming cattish. 
She could growl, she could spit, even scratch, but with 
a physiological majesty of manner that gave the effect 
of the play of a tiger’s kitten, a Royal Bengal, born of 
the supremacy of tropical forests. Her very physique 
made her generous and hearty. She had the content- 
ment of an intellectual athlete. 

- I like your Man, she began her peroration, But 
the nucleus of his nature, I suspect, is treachery. 

- Why do you call him my Man? laughed Sylvia. 

- Well, you found him, didn’t you?... sporting in 
the waves outside our taff-rail? 

- He was pulling excelsior out of a packing case. 
It was the First Class Passenger who saw him sporting 
in the waves. 

- Don’t speak to me of that execrable woman. I 
can’t abide her, Matey. You’ll throw me into a temper. 

-We’ll return to the Man without the. waves... 
How did you find him as a conversationalist? Or, as a 
listener?... I noticed you were talking the most of the 
time. 

- Is that anything out of the ordinary? I saw you 
were very partial to the Misogynist. 

- I like to talk to him. He is an excellent listener 
He actually pays attention to what I say. 

- Not so the Man. He is different. He takes a 
personal interest in ‘the sex’. He was not thinking of 
what I was talking about. He was trying to get at mv 
67 


motive underneath. 

- And did you have a motive, Captain Cody? 

- Of course I did. Every woman has a motive. 
You don’t think me unfeminine, do you, Matey? 

- And what was your motive in this case? 

- Why, to find out if he was true to Miss Gaylord, 
our Chief Engineer! There has been a romance be- 
tween them of some three years standing. 

- Don’t you think you are exacting a great deal 
when you expect to find anyone true to a romance after 
the third year? 

-Well, he has been two years abroad; and you 
know, in the words of the poet... 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 

- That’s for the heart left behind. The one that 
has change, soon grows callous. 

- To complete the sentiment as well as the couplet: 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder 
In the one who does not wander. 

- Don’t Cody. I wish you wouldn’t do doggerel. 
What were you talking about so brilliantly 'with the 
Man? 

- Did I appear brilliant, truly, Matey? 

- You always do that, Cody. You were more 
scintillating than is your custom. 

- You are a little admirer, and no joke. But it 

(>8 


wasn’t so much what I said that is significant. You 
have heard the same things many times. It was what 
the Man thought, and what I think he thought that 
matters. 

- Did you tell him the story of the seven virgins? 

- Yes, and the one of the false teeth and the cow. 
But, Matey, it was wasted breath but for Mr. Morgan, 
and I think he has heard them both before, though he 
was gentleman enough to vow that he hadn’t. 

- Yes, you told him both of them the first night. 
And he heard you tell the seven virgins to the Miso- 
gynist. Really, Cody, you ought to keep a memoran- 
dum of your stories, 

- Anyway they are good stories, and I try to tell 
them different. 

- You don’t, Cody, you use the same words. 

- That is because I have perfected them as works 
of art. But they didn’t catch the man. He was all the 
time puzzling me out, 

- If he solved you, it is more than I can do. 

- I mean he was trying to get at my weaknesses. 
Was I sensitive to the darts of Cupid for instance? Had 
I scars on my heart or an open wound? Or did I scorn 
men as my manner would imply? 

- Did your manner imply that? I thought you 
scorned the Misogynist. 

- It is a very different thing, Matey, for a man to 
scorn women, and for a woman to scorn men. The 
former takes on umbrage of a vice, and the latter is a 
bright and shining virtue. 

69 


- And did you decide the Man was virtuous or vi- 
cious? 

- Virtuous, ray love, over virtuous. In fact he 
makes a vice of the virtue. 

- Then you decided he is untrue to Miss Gaylord. 

- Not so speedy, Matey dear, not so precipitous. 

- You must not forget that the basis of the mascu- 
line heart is self vanity and that the strongest influence 
on their emotions is sentimentality. 

- Then after all, he will be faithful. 

- You are violent, darling, positively you are vio- 
lent. You must dwell more on the subtleties, the shades 
of passion. Since you force me to bluntness however, 
she loves him more than ever, poor fool, more because 
she can not get him, I fancy, than because of her belief 
in his actual worth. He knows that she loves him, and 
the knowledge tickles his vanity... well, you have seen 
a cat play with a mouse; it has bitten. In the end will 
the mouse eat the cat?., you understand me. 

- She is a dear mouse. I like Charlotte Gaylord. I 
think the man is a beast. 

- Mice as well as cats are beasts, Matey. But if an- 
other mouse runs in the game to interrupt... 

- Surely you are not going to play at cat’s paw, 
Cody. 

- Decoy, darling, keep our figure on its logical legs. 
I might play the worsted ball, or drag you in for that, 
but I was referring to that odious woman, that Madame 
Duke. 

- He won’t care for her, said Sylvia scornfully, el- 


70 


evating the tip of her pretty nose. 

- He won’t care for her, but she will get under his 
feet and she may trip him up and set him blundering. 
She is capable even of biting his toes. 

- I wish we hadn’t shipped our passengers. We 
were very well suited on our ship. Tessie is nice, though 
not a bit like her mother. I’d like to know what Mr. 
Duke is like. 

- A lamb, darling, take my word for it, a lamb. 
Fortunately, the Lord tempers the shorn lamb to the 
wind . 

- But Tessie seems to really love her mother. In a 
sense she is the parent and the other the child. 

- And nothing is more odious than a forward super- 
adolescent brat, especially of the feminine she-gender. 
But as usual, my little Matey, you err on the side of 
soft-heartedness. The daughter is not an unworthy pro- 
geny of her mother. 

- You have seen something? 

- I have heard something which is almost as safe. 
Those two children, I mean she and Beatrice Knox, 
have actually picked up some beaux in the port and 
are having larks and tea-parties with two art students. 
It is shocking. I am scandalized when I speak of it. 

- Did Mrs. Swan tell you this? 

- You do well, Matey, to look to our chief source 
of scandal. It is a wonder that she has not nosed this 
out. But I could feel that the old dear was concerned. 

- Did he say what kind of boys the art students 
were? 

71 


- My mentor, all boys are going to be men. At 
twenty they have already achieved that execrable state 
of brutish ness. 

- Do they see the boys often? 

- If they have not, depend on it, they will. We 
mustn’t forget our boarding schooldays, Matey... when 
we needed a procter as much as any. 

- It wouldn’t do any good to speak to Mrs. Duke, 
reflected Sylvia. She’d only say it was natural, and 
turn to herself. 

- In a way I am glad it has happened, declared 
Captain Cody. It gives a handle to what before was a 
sphere. In other words we have got to land our pas- 
sengers. We may take on others for Mrs. Stowe’s sake, 
but we’ve got to get rid of these. I know of two re- 
spectable gentlewomen, too old for imprudences. . col- 
orless I admit, but genteel. The Ship’s officers can fur- 
nish plenty of color. In short, I intend to go to Mrs. 
Stowe and tell her that these goings on will give her 
house a bad name. Of course we will keep the Midship- 
man. It is really the First Class cabin we wish to clean 
out and fumigate, 

- But Mrs. Stowe can’t tell Mrs. Duke to go, gasped 
Sylvia, 

- My dear, you forget the Ship’s Captain. I will 
be so politely nasty to Mrs. Juke that she will make a 
row and say that I must go or she will. Mrs. Stowe 
will be well primed by me, and First Class Cabin will 
go back with the pilot. 

They were startled, and the conversation was 


72 


brought to a close by the sound of a quick step on the 
gravel walk of the terrace outside. Whoever the ram- 
bler was she did not stop, but they heard her cross the 
arch bridge of the acequia and go on toward the hut of 
Mrs. Duke. 

- I’ll swear that woman has been brazening it about 
the Man’s studio, whispered the Captain. Come, Matey, 
lets on the cross trees, to look for a sail. 

- I wonder if she heard us. flurried Sylvia. Cody 
dear, you talk so loud when you’re in earnest. 

The wayfarer was not Mrs. Duke but her daughter 
Tessie, making a circuit of the garden, returning from 
their post office at the try sting oak, intent on evading 
the lookout at the window of Letitia Swan. 

Approaching the hut, known as the Quarter Deck, 
she had heard her own name and her mother’s spoken 
and her curiosity blended with her youth had caused 
her to linger till anger drove her on. Once in her 
mother’s room she poured out the whole story in in- 
dignation that succeeded to tears. 

- Ben and John are both perfectly nice boys, she 
sobbed, and that horrid woman’s tongue makes us all 
seem guilty. Oh Mother, I wish we could get away from 
this place. They call it a ship but I think it is more 
like a sewing circle. I wish we could find a house of 
our own, where we could do the cooking and cleaning 
ourselves and have the boys and Beatrice in every even- 
ing. 

- I will try to arrange it, consoled Mrs. Duke. Mr. 


73 


Morgan was telling me of a little four room cottage 
down close to the sea, that had but yesterday been va- 
cated by its tenants. I hated to think of leaving Mrs. 
Stowe after we had engaged our hut so long in advance 
but if Miss Cody has two ladies to take our place, we 
will not give her time to make trouble. It will be a 
triumph, she remarked after some reflection, and her 
eyes flashed green fire and her lips tightened. It will 
be a triumph to have Mr. Plummer for dinner. I’ll 
bet you a dollar, Trix, that once we are gone they will 
vote to have men guests just to spite us. 

- I do hope, Mother, if she begins to be disagreeable 
to you in the morning you will give her as good as she 
gives you. 

- I am not so clever as the novelist, Marion Cody, 
but I will try to hold my temper and watch my chance. 
But from you, Trixey, not a word except the sweetest, 
and if you tell Beatrice, make her promise not to tell 
the others. We want to have the air of going with great 
regret, for I have had too many quarrels in my life to 
seek another. 

The two ladies did not meet till lunch, and Mrs. 
Duke had had a busy morning. No sooner had Cap- 
tain Cody entered the room with her literary sword 
half drawn from its sheath, than the little woman ran 
up to greet her and taking both her unresisting hands, 
and holding them affectionately, she looked pleadingly 
and pleasantly into her eyes. 

- I must tell you first, Captain, she began, since 


74 


you are the first in authority, that I am forced by the 
state of my health to leave you immediately for my 
physician has absolutely insisted on daily sea bathing. 
I had thought when I arranged for the villa that I 
could easily walk the mile intervening but I find it al- 
together too exhausting in the sand and heat, and so I 
have given Mrs. Stowe notice. It has occured to me 
that you might know some one who could take our hut. 
It is so perfectly lovely, and I can’t tell you how Tessie 
and I hate to leave you all. We shall feel very dull and 
lonely in our little cottage, and we look forward to 
your all coming to see us. 

- What! have you found a place so soon? asked the 
Captain. I am sure we shall not be able to reconcile 
ourselves to the loss of our passengers. 

- Mr. Morgan has been so kind as to find us a cot- 
tage, simpered Mrs. Duke with affection. He is a sweet 
thing, and insists on coming to dine with us, though to- 
night we are to have dinner with him and Mr. Plum- 
mer and Mr. Quinn. You are to come too, Beatrice 
dear, she beamed at Miss Knox, and after dinner the 
boys Ben and John are to come for us and help us get 
installed in the cottage. They will walk home with you 
when all is done and Tess will, no doubt, like a stroll 
in the moonlight. With one boy I know she would not 
object, but I think she can be persuaded even with 
two. 

- Now mother, you know I love them both, pouted 
Tessie, and Trix loves us all three, don’t you, Trixie? 
But why shouldn’t she stay with us all night? She can 
75 


send down her night things with the wagon that takes 
our trunks. 

- This is all alarmingly sudden, expostulated the 
Captain . 

- We are heart-broken to leave you, I assure you, 
but I am afraid we are keeping everybody from lunch. 

And so all sat down to the table, and so the battle 
royal was over. 


CHAPTER IV 


The Purser 


Cecily Blount and Beatrice Knox were lolling through 
the heat of the afternoon after their morning’s work 
and their lunch, which had been slack of conversation 
and excitement after the departure of the two passen- 
gers. The Midshipman had been the center of interest 
at that function as she had dined the night before with 
the men. But the Captain had been too proud to ques- 
tion her, except for the usual polite inquiry as to her 
pleasant evening, and Beatrice being piqued at the ex- 
pulsion of her friends had remained mischievously and 
aggravatingly silent. She had spoken of the women 
however, the cosy charm and delight of their sea cot- 
tage, and she had enlarged on the kindness of the two 
boys who had so enthusiastically aided in the establish- 
ment. Nothing, however, was said of the Man. It was 
not even mentioned whether he had been present. Miss 
Blount w r as the only one who knew that he had been, 
78 


and she had not learned it from the reticent Beatrice. 
Last night she had been more successful in her strategy 
for she had encountered him alone as he was returning 
to his studio, and had walked back with him up the 
hill through the moonlight. She was considering now 
whether she should make a confidant of the Midship 
man. She wanted to talk with some one, she was burst- 
ing with the subject and Letitia Swan certainly would 
not do. She waited till she could more definitely judge 
the attitude of her hut-mate and gradually led the talk 
in that direction, deciding to act from the impulse of 
the moment if a way should open up to ease her heart. 

- Do the men seem to like Mrs. Duke? she said 
once by way of introduction. 

- Why shouldn’t they? challenged the pert little 
Beatrice, always ready for the defense of her friends. 

- Well the women don’t seem to. I was wondering. 
I liked her extremely, and Tessie, but the rest here 
seemed to fight a little shy. 

- They are so differently brought up, replied Be- 
atrice. Men have had a wider experience and don’t 
mind . 

- I suppose these men have a wider experience than 
most. They have all seen the world... lived in Europe. 

- Oh, I don’t think American men so narrow. Not 
but what the three we speak of are charming. 

- Did they talk about the Morganatic and its offi- 
cers? 

- No: they were talking art mostly. Mrs. Duke 
you know, has spend some months in Paris and natu- 
79 


rally they were going over old times. 

- It is my dream to have a studio in Paris. Ideas 
and conventions here are so cramped. Does Mr. Plum- 
mer expect to remain long in America? 

- He thinks he may get some portrait orders in 
Los Angeles, but I suppose that would keep him only 
this winter. 

- How funny it sounds to have this heat spoken of 
as winter. 

- Yes: it is a word that should never be used here. 

- I wonder if he paints portraits for the fun of it . 
That is I wonder if he would like to have a dancer pose 
for instance. It might be a very good advertisement for 
me if I were exhibited. Mr. Plummer has quite a 
name in the east I fancy. 

- Not so great I guess. He pretends not to have. 
He said he had been turned down by the Academy this 
year. Not that he seemed to mind in the least. 

- How did he treat Mrs. Duke? 

- Treat her!., flamed the Joyal little Beatrice. 

- I mean, was he attentive? Did he seem to like her? 
Did she ask him to her cottage? and did he accept? 

- Everybody asks everybody in such a case, Beatrice 
threw off carelessly. And naturally everybody accepts 
among friends. 

- Well, I don’t have to ask him to dinner. Miss 
Blount was beginning to feel resentment and independ- 
ence. I have my work which occupies my time. 

How was it that when she began to speak she in- 
tended to tell, and as soon as she made a statement she 
80 


decided not to.? 

- Of course, he is really in love with Charlotte, 
smoothed out Beatrice, who had no desire to quarrel. 
But they are both poor and I think it would be a mis- 
take to marry. 

- I think she would take the risk quick enough. 

- Oh, we all would if we were in love I suppose. 
But a man feels the responsibility before he marries. 

- Not afterwards,., our Letitia Swan would say. 

- It’s natural that the woman should feel it after- 
wards. Since it is her business to look after the house- 
hold. 

- Oh, fiddle! I don’t want any marriage in mine. 
But I’d like to have a man make love to me, wouldn’t 
you? 

- It is always pleasant, of course, replied the blush- 
ing Beatrice. Every woman likes to exercise her power. 

- Do you think he is crazy about Miss Gaylord? 

- He managed to eat a good dinner without her, 
laughed Beatrice. 

- I don’t think a man at his age is crazy about any 
woman. He likes to pluck a flower, twist it in his 
fingers and throw it aside for another later on. 

- I hope the thorns will tear his hand, flared up 
Beatrice. 

- Oh, I don’t even hope that. We are not all roses. 
I would be a poppy and leave him dreaming. 

- Miss Gaylord is no poppy I am sure. She is a 
thistle, no the flower of a black locust. He’ll hardly 
pluck her. He’ll only philander beneath in the shade. 
81 


- And what kind of a flower am I then? laughed 
Miss Knox. 

- A carnation, my dear, a sweet scented pink. Now 
I am a cabbage... to be eaten. 

The Midshipman went to her own room to take a 
nap and Cecily Blount drowsed contentedly with her 
dreams. 

- I am really like a poppy, she mused lazily... no, 
I am really like a cabbage and ripe to pluck. It sounds 
foolish to talk of a cabbage being ripe. I’ll be a peony; 
that is better, a crimson peony. 

When she wakened it was with a sickness of heart, 
more like that which she was familiar with in the mor- 
ning. She was making the mistake of being over bold. 
Why had she told him so frankly last night she had 
come down on purpose to meet him? She had argued 
then that he would guess it, even if she pretended an- 
other excuse. It was not reasonable that she should 
walk that road twice without a motive. Then she had 
often been told that one of her charms was her frank- 
ness. Letitia Swan was always telling her that. 

But Letitia Swan had been telling her other things 
as well in the past week, things about men, that did not 
seem to be quite universal. For one thing, that all men 
were brutes and would never fail to take advantage of a 
woman. Now, she, Cecily Blount, had gone down the 
hill to allow’ this man to take advantage of her. Mrs. 
Swan ’s description of these masculine brute charac- 
teristics had roused her curiosity. They had had the 
opposite effect from w’hat the poetess had described. 
82 


Cecily had all but invited the man to be a brute and 
he had insisted on being more like a school boy. Not 
that he had been over modest or bashful... he had in- 
deed been forward in some instances. But he had the 
good natured resistance of a big brother, when his sis- 
ter wants a favor done and is petting him. Cecily had 
a big brother, and several cousins, but this man was 
not a relative and had no right to assume the ways of 
one. She hated them; he was a stranger, a heart-break- 
er, a Don Juan, . according to the noisy preachings of 
Letitia Swan. Now, Beatrice Knox would say it was 
because he was in love with Charlotte but... fiddle 
sticks! If Charlotte Gaylord only knew that he had 
been chucking her, Cecily Blount, under the chin! .. No, 
such conduct was not remaining faithful to Miss Gay- 
lord. 

Cecily rose and stood long before the mirror, assu- 
ming all the expressions of coquettishness, enthusiasm, 
earnestness that she employed the night before without 
effect, and wondering if it was the fault of the moon- 
light. If he could see her in candle-light she felt he 
would be influenced. Artists love strongly contrasted 
light effects sometimes, and she knew a trick of holding 
the candle just below and in front of her chin and then 
looking upward with laughter. It was really like a 
Franz Hals or Rembrandt. She wished he would paint 
her that way. 

He certainly had a way of putting her off that pos- 
itively made her want to leap and kiss him. If she 
should do, it she doubted whether he would be shocked; 
83 


but perhaps one kiss might make him careless about 
others. After all she had heard things about men be- 
fore Letitia Swan began her instruction. One of them 
was that a man didn’t like a woman to seek him out. 
But even Captain Cody said that had gone out of fash- 
ion. Still it was possible, now Cecily considered it, that 
this man was an old-fashioned man. 

She reviewed all they had said as they walked loi- 
teringly up the hill to his studio and decided that he 
was not old-fashioned at all. He had met her, well, 
now she came to analyze it, something as a man might 
who had been married for six months or so, and she 
had come out to meet him in a place that was not pub- 
lic, but still that might be overlooked by an intimate 
friend... Yes, his manner seemed to say. She loved 
him and he still loved her, and it was a very jolly ar- 
rangement altogether, but they must not be too intim- 
ate or private, because it was a public road way after 
all, and well, it’s an old story you know, and he wan- 
ted to be enjoying the moonlight. 

And this would have been all very well until they 
came to the studio, but then he had grown suddenly 
formal, put out his hand suavely to say good night, 
and he even thanked her for coming to meet him . The 
effrontery, it was effrontery, made her blush still. She 
decided she would teach him a lesson. 

The question was, how was she to do it, since he 
had not asked the permission to call. Indeed he proba- 
bly knew of this stupid Morganatic rule that had been 
instigated and pushed through by Miss Cody. Miss Co- 
84 


dy was a horrid person, she saw it now, who liked men 
and yet was not very attractive to them. So she could 
not bear to see them attentive to other women, and for 
that she had shoved Mrs. Duke out. Well, she should 
not shove out Cecily Blount. But Cecily would get that 
man just the same. She had long wanted the attentions 
of a man. Perhaps that was a secret reason why she 
had decided to be a dancer. Anyway now that her 
profession had been decided upon she needed a man, 
many men, to pay her courtesy. This one was hand- 
some, experienced, unattached. He should be her first 
conquest. She now willed it. She might not rule for 
long, she did not care, but this conquest would be the 
first step to another. Letitia Swan had made her eager 
for experience, with her constant repelling descriptions 
given in detail. Letitia Swan had had a past and could 
afford to cavil. But it is hypocritical to cavil at the 
future. 

Letitia Swan was having her own troubles and was 
relating them to a more sympathetic ear than her dear 
Cecily’s. Charlotte Gaylord was sewing in her room, 
making a new dinner gown. She could do it. Perhaps 
she could do it better than she could paint a picture, 
she had been a poor girl and had learned to do things 
deftly. Her sense of duty was not dulled by her love 
of fashion and to design a dinner gown when she could 
afford the materials was her delight. This time a friend 
had helped her purchase: purple silk, wine colored vel- 
vet, beaded embroideries of gold and green and silver. 
85 


- You are certainly a wonder, sighed Letitia. It 
just suits you, with those beads in your hair. I wish 
you would design me such a gown. 

- Would you really wear a frock of my making? 
Charlotte radiantly paused before the mirror. The Poet- 
ess was wont to appear in black silk, that was some- 
what worn as well as carelessly adjusted. 

- Sure I’d wear anything, replied Letitia. I haven’t 
had a pretty frock since I was divorced. 

- I should make it old-fashioned, short waisted. 
Some quaint, odd flowered pattern of soft wool. 

- It sounds like a piece of goods I have in my 
trunk now. Mr. Swan bought it for me for a present, 
he got it at some country store or other and I was so 
mad at him I never would have it made up. I kept it 
thinking I might sometime use it for curtains. He 
called it delaine. That’s what his mother used to call 
it. Did you ever hear of delaine? 

Charlotte shook her head and asked the color but 
she was really thinking of her purple and her crimson, 
and how they were Joe’s favorite colors for her. 

- I will go and get it, said Mrs. Letitia. It’s down 
on the very bottom of my trunk. 

When she returned, Charlotte had taken off her 
robes and was once more the sedate seamstress in gray 
linen. 

- Peach stones with green spots in the middle, plan- 
ted diamond-wise in a field of yellow white... cried Let- 
itia coming in with the delaine. 

- Why, it’s pretty! We’ll, get some cherry colored 


86 


ribbon and make you a sash and shir in a round neck. 
You can wear a locket and put marigolds in your hair. 
With red shoes you would be like a picture. 

- I have an old locket, mused the poetess. It was 
my mother’s. It’s all the jewelry I have. But you are 
laughing at me with my green eyes and gray hair. 
Cherry colored ribbons and marigolds... Great God! 

- I mean it, I will show you, cried Charlotte. Take 
your blouse off while I rummage for some red stuff. 

Letitia laughed with the bashfulness of a plow-boy, 
but dutifully did as she was bid. 

Miss Gaylord stood surveying her for a moment 
and then took an end of the goods and began to gather 
it. 

- No: first we must do your coiffure. That makes 
the difference! And taking out Mrs. Letitia’s prim hair- 
pins, she brushed the thin hair down from its former 
severe position, to make it shade her cheeks and hide 
her neck, which was sallow and strenous and sinewy. 
This she bound with a ribbon of black velvet and took 
some marigolds from a glass on her dresser to twist be- 
neath. She even discovered a strand or two that she 
could curl, and tucked the frazzled ends under the 
velvet. 

- Now we are ready for the bodice, you shall not 
look in the mirror till it is done. She then tucked the 
two ends of the dress pattern in the neck of Mrs. Swan’s 
untrimmed under waist, tied them high under the arms 
with a sash of red, draped a moment, patted, pinned 
and gathered. - There! she exclaimed, pushing her 
87 


model before the mirror. The lady of a hundred years 
ago, colonial-empire! 

Mrs. Swan laughed a low melodious note. - You are 
a witch, she said patting both cheeks of the delighted 
artist... It is pretty, but, come, I couldn’t wear it. 
Everybody would think me a fool with my forty years 
and my gray hair. 

- A woman is no older than she looks, laughed 
Miss Gaylord, and your hair is not gray it’s ashen 
green. It just misses the fashionable shade of two years 
back, but the antiqueness of the fashion heightens the 
picture. 

- A locket would be pretty, laughed Letitia, but 
mine is as big as a watch, bigger than many. It’s one 
of those for a picture and lock of hair. It is plain gold 
with a wreath of roses engraved on the face. 

- Just the thing. You shall wear it at Mrs. Duke’s 
party. She said she was going to ask you and Beatrice 
Knox. 

- I go to a party at Mrs. Duke’s? 

- Why not? There’ll be only Mr. Morgan and Mr. 
Quinn and Mr. Plummer, I believe. Oh, yes, two 
young art students, friends of the girls. The cottage is 
small but the porch is spacious and there is a garden, 
that gives down on the level beach; it’s really lovely. 

- But I am not a friend of Mrs. Duke. 

- You’re not an enemy, are you? You’re an acquain- 
tance, the same as I am. At a party one talks mostly 
with the men. 

- I can talk with Mr. Morgan and Mr. Quinn. 


88 


- Of course, and Mr. Plummer is not so horrid. 

- Taking a bath. Ugh! 

- He probably won’t take one at the party. If 
there is bathing that is different from a bath. 

- I don’t see how that woman can stand up before 
him. I think I’ll go just to see how she carries it off. 

The party was set for an evening three days hence. 
When the invitation came to Mrs. Swan, it was accept- 
ed. She was already deep in the wonders of the frock. 

Miss Gaylord was disappointed in the party as much as 
her new protegee was delighted. Letitia had been ac- 
claimed a success by all except the one she most desired. 
Mr. Plummer had rebuked Charlotte late in the even- 
ing, sworn at “the scrawny little shrew with the man’s 
voice”, declared her pretended poetry to be drivel, and 
in short he had been ungentlemanly and rude. Besides 
poor Charlotte was not arrayed in her purple and wine 
color, having given so much time to help Letitia who 
was actually only a hindrance at sewing and the regal 
gown had been laid aside. In her bitterness Charlotte 
had put on an old brown silk. She knew that Joe hated 
her in brown. Then he had talked all the time about 
Miss Blount. - Was she wealthy? Did she have lovers? 
Who would help her in a career, or how did she expect 
to get on? 

- She seems to have made an impression on you 
that night. You should have asked Mrs. Duke to invite 
her to this party. 

- Anything would have been better than that rasp- 


89 


ing donkey-engine of a poet, had snarled Joe Plummer. 
She has been following me around till I feel like a load 
of pumpkins. I believe donkey-engines are fed on 
pumpkins. 

Miss Gaylord had informed her ex-sweetheart his 
wit was forced and had turned all her smiles to Mr. 
Quinn. Whereupon both to her horror and her satisfac- 
tion, LetitiaSwan had actually taken Joe by the sleeve 
and in Charlotte’s hearing he had asked her if she ad- 
mired Cecily Blount, and Letitia had rode forth on her 
favorite subject and succeeded in finishing up the even- 
ing with that theme. 

Then on their arrival home, Letitia had become sud- 
denly suspicious when Beatrice had found Cecily’s hut 
vacant. Even apart from suspicions she would have to 
have a long talk with Charlotte, for her excitement 
would remain with her for the night. 

- It’s strange where that girl is, she began cautious- 
ly, for she knew that if Charlotte suspected any meet- 
ing with Mr. Plummer it would cause her uneasiness if 
not pain, and the poetess was genuinely kind hearted. 

- Probably she’s gone down the terrace road to 
meet Mr. Plummer, said Miss Gaylord laying aside her 
hated gown and slipping on a kimono of shimmering 
lilac. 

- Well, since you suspect it too, I am glad you 
speak of it. For I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the 
world. 

- Why should what Miss Blount does hurt my feel- 
ings? Mr. Plummer walks with a hundred girls, I sup- 
90 


pose. 


- Don’t... don’t you have an understanding? asked 
the Chief Steward leaning eagerly forward. 

- I don’t think we have any misunderstanding; 
that’s a better condition than the one you mention, 
isn’t it? 

- I had thought you did, said Letitia somewhat 
sadly. You ought to bring him to it. You really ought 
to. 

- An understanding that he should not walk with 
Miss Blount when she is so thoughtful as to come down 
to accompany him up the hill? 

- Did he tell you she did?... very fervidly. 

- Why, wasn’t I with him at the time?... Miss Gay- 
lord was petulant. 

- That time, yes. But she may have gone again. 

- One usually repeats what one has done if one 
has found it pleasant. 

- I wish we had got out of the car and walked up 
with him. 

- You take more interest in his private affairs 
than I do. 

- Oh, I was thinking of Cecily. But I do think he’s 
every inch a gentleman. 

- Then he will conduct himself in a gentlemanly 
manner, no doubt. 

- My dear, you don’t know men. You really don’t. 
Not till you’ve been married to one do you know them. 

- I suppose they aren’t all alike any more than 
women are alike. I don’t think I’m like Cecily Blount. 
91 


If a man came to meet me intentionally and persisted 
I would slap his face for him, said Miss Gaylord, in a 
tone that seemed to be slapping at Miss Blount. 

- Men don’t slap women till they are wearied of 
them. And then they mayn’t do that, though they’re 
brutes. 

- If they’re brutes I should think you’d advise me 
to keep away from an understanding. Charlotte re- 
turned to the subject, against her pride, at the same 
time hating herself for doing so. 

- It’s hard for a woman to live alone, said Mrs. 
Swan. 

- It’s hard to live with a man, I am told. 

- Did you ever try living with a woman? 

- I always have, but it comes to grief. I begin to 
think nothing endures. 

- I wish you and I could live together. I can’t tell 
you how much comfort you are to me. 

- Oh, I’d get into a tantrum the first week. I’m 
horrid when I get in a tantrum. 

- I would understand, said Mrs. Swan. I’ve been 
in tantrums myself. 

- There you are. We’d both get in one together. 

- Separate ones?... or the same one? laughed Leti- 
tia. Puzzle: can two people get in one tantrum? 

The interview lagged. Miss Gaylord yawned. 

- Let’s walk out in the garden, suggested Mrs. 
Swan. She did not dare suggest they should spy on 
Cecily’s return, though she thought that Miss Gaylord 
might think of it. 


- Too tired: I think I’ll go to bed. 

- That’s an invitation for me to go I suppose, bris- 
tled the poetess. I am capable of taking a hint, you 
needn’t order me out. To the other’s great surprise she 
burst out sobbing. She seemed a middle-aged woman 
in a child’s dress. 

Miss Gaylord went over and put her arm around 
her shoulder. 

-There! I didn’t mean anything, she soothed com- 
fortingly. 

But the woman’s grief only fed on her compassion. 

- I am lonely, and deserted, and old, she gasped 
between sobs. Her shoulders heaved as with the pent 
anguish of a man. 

- You are none of those, dear Mrs. Swan. 

- Don’t call me by that name! I hate it. If you 
loved me you’d call me Letitia. 

- Why, I’ve only known you for these few weeks. 
I didn’t mean any coldness. Don’t cry so. 

- I believe you are jealous of Cecily; I really have 
tried to make you jealous but all the time I have liked 
you the best. 

- You shall like her as much as you please. I’m 
not jealous. A woman can be fond of all her friends, 
can’t she? 

- You don’t know what friendship is, said Mrs. 
Swan. I believe you’re thinking of that man even now. 

- You are getting too personal, Mrs. Swan. 

For reply the Chief Steward threw herself on the 
bed and bit the coverlet in a paroxism of weeping. 

03 


Charlotte was both incensed and distressed. She 
remembered that she, herself, had gone through such 
crises with her friends, and now she was humiliated 
as she recalled it. 

- Really, Letitia... she began sorrowfully - 

- Call me Lettie, if you don’t despise me. I hate 
Letitia. Nobody calls me Lettie in this house. 

- I couldn’t call you Lettie, any more than I could 
allow you to call me Lottie, she said smiling. It would 
be ludicrous for us both, don’t you think? 

Her humility from past weaknesses made her tol- 
erant. She determined to be kind to the little woman. 

- Don’t cry so. Don’t cry, she kept saying. 

- You took so much trouble to prink me up for 
the party; you neglected your own dress to do it. I ap- 
preciated it, though I act as if I didn’t and I tried to 
like the Man for your sake, and I am sure he likes ine. 

- What does it matter? soothed Charlotte in alarm. 

- He must at least have thought me clever. I was 
almost brilliant. I really have never talked so well 
before. 

Suddenly she sat bolt upright on the bed, and 
stared straight before her, thinking deeply. 

- He wa3 pumping me about Cecily, she said sto- 
nily. And I’ll bet he’s had an appointment to meet 
her. I don’t care if you do think it’s beneath my pride. 
I’m going to find out; I’m going now. 

She stalked out of the room in mannish fashion, 
quite out of keeping with her pretty little frock. 


94 


Miss Blount seemed not to be in her room, and af- 
ter tapping, the Chief Steward made bold to enter. 

- Is that you Cecily? called out the startled Mid- 
shipman through the next door. 

- Good Lord! are you awake Beatrice? It’s after 
midnight. I thought everybody should be asleep. 

- You don’t seem to be, unless you are a somnam- 
bulist, returned the Midshipman with some show of 
spirit. 

- I can’t sleep. A party all upsets me. Where is 
Miss Blount? Tell me that. 

- I suppose she’s out somewhere for a walk. She 
loves to stroll about in the moonlight. 

- Alone! 

- Who is there to stroll with on our decks? I have 
never heard of her being seen ashore. 

- You know I begin to think this ship’s rule busi- 
ness is all nonsense. It’s not rational to forbid enter- 
taining the men. 

- I think it’s cosy. If we want men there are al- 
ways plenty of them hovering around. 

- Like sharks, you mean. Mrs. Swan was sarcastic. 

- Sharks and larks rhyme, said the sleepy Mid- 
shipman. 

The Chief Steward came in and sat down on the 
edge of the bed. 

- Do you realize, she began solemnly, that all this 
time Charlotte is eating her heart out for love of that 
Man in the garden. Do you realize that they have been 
as good as engaged for three years and now Cecily 
95 


Blount is squeezing in between them. 

- I suppose Mr. Plummer knows his own mind, 
replied Beatrice, waking up, however, at the hint of a 
romance. 

- A man will let himself be wound around any wo- 
man’s finger, if only she will take the trouble to do it. 

- And do you think Cecily is really out with him? 

- Where else could she be at this ungodly hour? 
And don't you see that this rule gives her all the ad- 
vantage over Charlotte, who has too much respect for 
herself to go hanging around a man’s studio, or inter- 
cepting him on his walks home. 

- Why don’t you speak to the Captain about 
changing the rules? 

-Oh, damn your “Captain”! Who is she to be 
Captain? Aren’t we living in a democracy in America! 

But the Midshipman was beginning to drowse soft- 
ly, and the Chief Steward went away in disgust. 

She paced restlessly back and forth along the ter- 
race in front of the hut for ten minutes, stopping fre- 
quently to listen to catch the sound of footsteps. At 
length she could endure the strain no longer and stole 
down the path of steps to the second terrace.. There 
she saw a white figure in the shadow of an olive tree, 
and boldly advanced to accost it with some asperity. 
It turned out to be Marion Cody, however, much too 
tall and slender for the plump figure of the dancer. 

- I was looking for Miss Blount, she said calmly, 
after the Captain had hailed her with, “Ship ahoy!” 

- It seems we are all sleepless tonight, laughed the 


96 


Captain. I think it is the brilliancy of the moon. Miss 
Howard though seems undisturbed by its radiance. For 
my part, I have no desire to turn in. Was Miss Blount 
a member of the party aboard the Yacht? How pretty 
you are in that darling little dress! 

- It’s all mussed now; stammered the poetess, 
much pleased. 

- Miss Gaylord was telling me about it. She ought 
to turn modiste. She’s really an artist. No doubt she’s 
just as clever at her pictures. 

- Captain, I’m all for changing this rule about the 
men... began the Chief Steward bluntly. It isn’t right 
that some others should have the advantage of inviting 
them, and still others dogging their foot-steps on the 
roads, or traipesing about with them in the fields. Now 
there’s Charlotte, she’s an old friend of Mr. Plummer, 
and, naturally, would like to ask him to her table... 
Then, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Quinn are always enter- 
taining us, and we have no way of responding to their 
attentions unless we ask them up to tea, at least It’s 
not that I want the men, or that you do, but it isn’t 
fair to those who do, and I’m for freedom. 

- In other words, responded the Captain somewhat 
thoughtfully, if we have prohibition, the temperate are 
made to suffer total abstinence, and the intemperate 
take advantage through evasion. 

- That’s where you hit the nail on the head! pro- 
nounced the Chief Steward ; and the Captain replied 
they would have to think it over. 

As there seemed no further topic for conversation 


97 


between them, the Chief Steward passed on with a 
brief Good-night. Not invited to pace the second ter- 
race with Miss Cody, and not willing to go back to the 
first, she boldly took the path to the lower, leaving the 
Captain to such surmises as she might choose. 

- Cecily! she called, guardedly, once or twice; but 
no Cecily... and she walked on, in front of the studio. 
The gates were closed, and well screened with vines... 
No sign of a light glimmered through. If the Man had 
come straight home from the entrance of the lane where 
he left them, he might, long ago, have been in his bed. 
If he had encountered Miss Blount, and tarried, they 
must have turned off on some by-path. The Chief Stew- 
ard went down the road all the way to the drive where 
they had left him... 

How lonely the dusty drive-way seemed in the 
moonlight! It shone like the sands of a desert. And 
the rustling of the eucalyptus leaves as she entered the 
grove had a sinister warning against remembrance. 

It was half past two when the Chief Steward, with 
dress bedraggled, slipped into her own room in the vil- 
la. All lights were out; the house was everywhere si- 
lent. She kindled her own lamp and carried it to the 
mirror. She was horrified to find how old she looked; 
and her face was gray with dust and streaked with tears. 
Without undressing, without removing her shoes, she 
crawled on her bed, pulled a coverlet over her, and lay 
thinking of the past. It was dawn before she roused 
enough to creep between the sheets for comfort. The 
birds singing did not prevent her from falling asleep. 

98 


- We may admit, to each other, Matey, in private, 
that we have been a bit school- girlish in our enthu- 
siasm. Captain Cody lighted her third cigarette and 
stretched herself on the bench for its enjoyment. 

- Heaven preserve for us our school-girl enthusi- 
asm, replied Sylvia. When it is gone there is naught 
but to cast ourselves into the sea. 

- Ugh! Don’t speak of drowning. I hate it. That’s 
the reason that I so thoroughly enjoy this ship. The 
ship enthusiasm now is always an enjoyable one, but 
we have made a mistake in the ship’s articles, in land- 
lubber parlance: the rules. 

- Some of the officers seem to rather scorn the 
ship. 

- My dear, what people protest against, they secret- 
ly love. But the rule against men is annoying. I am 
glad that the Chief Steward brought it up for reconsid- 
eration. 

- It i3 better than coming from us. 

- Wild horses should never have dragged it from me. 
No, not though I was pining for the sight of a man. 

- If you and I vote for it, it will carry unanimous, 
with the Chief Steward and the Chief Engineer both 
won over. 

- I’m not so sure about the Chief Engineer. Char- 
lotte Gaylord is one of those not unusual types of wo- 
men who always vote against what they desire. 

- She is in a difficult position, Cody. She is really. 


99 


- My darling, all women are in a difficult position 
when it comes to the question of securing a partner. 
For a man, to desire a mate is accredited honorable. 
For a woman, it is despicably vulgar. 

- Well, the women get even after marriage. 

- Do they? Do they? The Captain began to fume. 

- If a wife wants a divorce she is pitied, sustained. 
If a husband, he is branded unfaithful. 

- You renegade! You traitress of your sex! 

- After all, I don’t see that the conventions of 
courtship are so unfair to the woman. It is woman’s 
nature to crave attention, and she creates a situation 
where she can get it. She forces the man into the po- 
sition of agressor, and if she sometimes finds one will 
not agress, it is but justice that she should suffer for 
his inertia. 

- You have been listening to the Misogynist. You 
traitor ! 

- The Misogynist is a curious creature. Can you 
imagine his being in love? 

- Now Sylvia, we have discussed all that before. 
You know that is the reason I hate the Misogynist, be- 
cause I am like him. 

- You will fall for a man some day, old Cody. 

- Never! While I keep my wits to steel my heart. 
I have seen too many women in love, Matey. They are 
all blank fools then, ridiculous. Besides, it isn’t my 
nature to adore a man. 

- But jmu like them to adore you, you know, Cody. 

- That is explained by the general love of power. 


100 


An attribute shared alike by both sexes. 

- I don’t believe the Misogynist loves power. I am 
sure a woman’s love would embarass him, and even a 
man’s would annoy him. 

- The Misogynist gets his feast of power by being 
remote to others; he over-lives them. 

- That is not power, it is aloofness. 

- In the end it brings power more than anything. 
You will find that if any of us get into trouble, it is to 
the Misogynist that we go for aid and consolation. 

- There is something about him that makes you 
feel like giving him confidence. He is a sort of father 
confessor. 

- And what power is there like the power of the 
priest? 

- But you often say, Cody, that no one comes to 
you with a confidence... so after all, you can’t be like 
the Misogynist. 

- You are a clever little minx, Sylvia, to upset my 
private philosophy of vain glory. So that is the reason 
I hate him? 

- I meant to say you were different; and that one 
day you will fall for a man. 

The Captain came and knelt at her friend’s knees, 
her voice was richer and more husky than usual. 

- Speed the day, Matey, speed the day! I admit 
that I am a lonely, morbid woman, 


101 


The Captain tapped her glass after the dessert had been 
served, and the two maids had retired to the kitchen. 

- Since we are to take on two passengers tomorrow, 
it may be well if we over-haul our regulations. The 
Chief Steward has an amendment to propose. I will 
now call on the Chief Steward. Gentlemen, attention. 

Letitia Swan became suddenly bashful and squir- 
med in her chair like a boy. 

- You propose it, Captain. I can’t make a speech. 
When I open my mouth I always put my foot in it. 

- As a fine for getting off so old a joke, I require 
the Chief Steward to proceed. 

- Well, the poetess began, getting up from her 
chair. I over-hauled the Captain, last night, on the 
quarter deck, I think that is the sea-worthy phrase, 
and I put up a mutiny from the officers and told her 
we were for retracing our course on the bylaws. I said: 
With so many fish in the water - sharks was the word I 
used with the Captain - with so many sharks in the 
water, we were at a disadvantage from the inhabitants 
of the smaller craft. In fact, I am not sure I make my- 
self clear. I propose we strike out the bylaw against 
entertaining men on board the Morganatic. I wish to 
record my vote for men. I hope my motives will not 
be misunderstood. 

- It is out of order for you to vote first, interrupted 
the Purser. We maintain the prestige of rank. I, as 
the Purser, will keep the record, and I call first for a 
speech and vote from Captain Cody. 

The Captain, now rose smilingly at the summons 


102 


and the Chief Steward sank back and mopped her brow . 

- Hear, hear, Captain Cody] she cried. 

- Gentlemen, began the Captain, very graciously.. 
It is not so much on account of the sharks that I am 
changing my mind, as on account of the dignity with 
which I now regard our position. I take it that none 
of us have remodeled our convictions about men. We 
all scorn them as we always have, and always will, but 
by showing our scorn, I think we may seem to give to 
the inferior sex an importance that in reality does not 
obtain. It is not that any one of us personally desires 
to invite a man on board the Morganatic. It is proba- 
ble that no man will ever be invited. But we wish to 
stand well in the supremacy of our own estimation. 
Therefore, I vote for the amendment. 

- The Mate, called out the Purser after a round of 
applause. 

- Fellow ship-mates, began Sylvia, slightly flush- 
ing. For my own part, I cannot attain the high stand- 
point of my superior officer. I admit frankly that I am 
out for sharks, and my harpoon is newly baited with 
ten pounds of blubber. I announce the Misogynist as 
my quarry. I wish to land him headlond and gasping 
on our decks. I vote yes for the amendment. 

- Two votes “for”, called out the Purser. A speech 
now and a vote from the Engineer. 

Miss Gaylord rose, this time in no way flustered, 
a hidden smile seemed playing beneath her lips. 

- I am deeply pained, I am grieved at the confes- 
sions of my superiors, in this reactionary measure, and 
103 


I think the Mate is employing the wrong method for 
catching sharks. 

The best way, gentlemen, to catch a shark, is not 
to dangle a baited hook over the side... It is to boldly 
hurl one’s self into the briny deep and the sharks, if of 
the proper species, will bite instantly. I remain faith- 
ful in voting “no” to the amendment. 

- Two “for”, one “against”, called the Purser. 
Now we will hear from the Chief Steward. 

- I made my speech - Mrs. Swan looked reproach- 
fully at Charlotte Gaylord - and in spite of the Chief 
Engineer’s objections, I vote “for”. 

- Three for the amendment and one against. We 
now take the vote of the Ship’s Doctor. 

- In order to keep up the interest of the contest, 
since the question at stake has no interest for me, 
laughed the Doctor, 1 change my vote from the first 
time like my Captain and request that now it be recor- 
ded “no” to the amendment. 

- Three “for” and two “against”, read the Purser. 
We now have to hear from the Midshipman. 

Miss Beatrice Knox was feeling mischievous that 
morning and thought it would be a lark to throw the 
responsability of the contest on the dancer. 

- No speech, she answered demurely, but I set my 
vote “no” to the amendment. 

Three “for” and three “against”, the Purser rose. 
On me rests the responsability of the deciding vote. 

A flutter of excitement ran round the table. Cap- 
tain Cody was smiling blandly, even graciously, but 
104 


there was a glitter in her eye that she could not repress. 

- The Purser for a speech and vote... Attention, 
gentlemen. 

Cecily Blount was more charming than she had 
ever been before. She spoke with a personal inflection 
that was intimate, even affectionate. 

- I am sorry, gentlemen, that I can not maintain 
the philosophic position that you all assume. I can on- 
ly be selfish and think of my own needs. As you know 
I voted for the bylaw in the beginning because I did 
not want my practice to be interrupted. Now this pri- 
vacy becomes still more important to me, because I 
find I am obliged to put my practice in the afternoon. 
I have made this change out of deference to Mr. Plum- 
mer, who only arranges for sitters in the morning. I 
think I have not told you yet, in fact it was only last 
night that I gave him my decision... he has been 
pleased to ask me to pose for him in my Persian Dan- 
cer costume... he wants to get a full length for exhibi- 
tion. 

Of course it means professional advantage to me 
and therefore I vote “no” to the amendment. 

- The Amendment is lost. Men are still forbidden 
the Morganatic, announced the Captain ; and breaking 
up the session thus informally she went over and took 
Cecily Blount by both hands and congratulated her 
warmly on her victory. 



CHAPTER V 


The Midshipman 


Beatrice and Tessie were lying in the sand watching 
the tide creep into the hollows. Their bathing suits 
were dry from their last dip but conversation had 
proved too interesting to them to return to the cottage. 

- Do you mean to tell me, Tessie, the Midshipman 
was saying, that you and Ben are actually engaged? 

- Well, we thought we would get engaged for two 
weeks. After that we might know our minds better. 
Let me see, that was Sunday - Tessie was counting up - 
and today is Tuesday. We still have eleven more days. 
It is, dear Trix, to be engaged, positively, darling. 
Have you ever been in that blessed condition? 

- Twice, but it was long ago. I was a mere child. 

- Twice to the same man, or separate ones? 

- Oh, separate ones! They were years and years 
apart. I was always very faithful to my engagements. 

- You talk like an octogenarian, laughed Tessie, 

103 


and now you are only twenty four. 

- Twenty four and a half, corrected Beatrice. But 
why did you get engaged for two weeks? I was engaged 
for ever and ever. 

- It would be nice, I admit, replied Tessie, but 
you know Ben has his faults and I must be cautious. 

- I think he is a very nice fellow. 

- You didn’t know he drinks. I shouldn’t have 
told you. It is a secret, I only told Mother. 

- Why he doesn’t look like a drinker. 

- I shouldn’t say he was exactly a drinker. But he 
has confessed to taking a glass occasionally. I have 
made him stop smoking cigarettes, too. So you see our 
engagement has been good for something. 

- But yout mother smokes, I have even seen you 
puff at a cigarette. 

- Mother has formed her habits and probably will 
not let them grow T on her. But Ben is only nineteen 
and at that age it is better to be prudent. 

- If you are so cautious about the habits of your 
future husband, 1 should think you would choose an 
old man. 

- When I marry I probaby shall, said Tess calmly. 
I have warning from the example of my parents, who 
ran away and married at twenty. Mother was only 
eighteen. 

- They seem to me very happy. 

- To you, deary, who remain on the outside. But 
a daughter knows different. They fight like cats. 

- Oh, Tessie! 

109 


- Of course, all married people fight. I would ra- 
ther it would be like cats than like snakes. But I mean 
to train my husband so he will obey me. Naturally J 
shall not love him if he does not rebel occasionally. 

- For worldly wisdom, Tess, you surely take the 
prize. 

- Yes: I have had the benefits that come from ob- 
servation, and considering that this is my first bona fide 
engagement I think I have proved that I have profited 
thereby. 

- But if you are going to marry an old man in the 
end, why not get engaged to one in the beginning? 

- Proximity and occasion, my dear, and then you 
must admit Ben is enthusiastic. 

- Well, I am not going to get engaged to John, I 
couldn’t give up the pleasure of hearing him ask me. 

- But surely you let him kiss you sometimes. 

- Only in the dark. I shouldn’t dream of it by 
daylight. 

- It is pleasant, though, by daylight and before 
people. It makes you feel proud of owning somebody. 

- I like more to feel proud of my independence. 
Now lam thinking of setting my cap for Mr. Plummer. 

- Why, you told me that he was reserved for Char- 
lotte Gaylord. Really Beatrice, I think you have hard- 
ly dealt fairly with me in this. 

- Now really, Tess, it is you who are not fair. You 
told me yourself that you scorned Mr. Plummer, be- 
cause you thought it indelicate for both a mother and a 
daughter to carry on flirtations with the same man. 

110 


- That was only for flirtations. Mother, of course, 
can’t marry him. She doesn’t believe in divorce. 

- Well, I am not going to marry him either. I on- 
ly meant setting my cap for a flirtation. What I really 
want is to get in between him and Cecily, break it up, 
and then turn, him over to poor Charlotte. 

- That’s a dangerous game, Trixie; it really is, and 
frankly I don’t think it’s fair to John. It would make 
him beastly unhappy. 

- Do you really love Ben very much? Beatrice was 
inclined to change the subject. 

- Why, I couldn’t be engaged to him if I didn’t. 
You surely don’t think me capable of hypocrisy? 

- What do you talk about, your prospects? 

- His prospects, of course, a wife’s prospects are 
her husband’s. He is going to keep up his art stu- 
dies for two years. We both agree that we don’t ap- 
prove of these half-baked artists. 

- John is doing commercial work already. 

- You must remember that John is twenty three, 
and he has been in love twice before. 

- But not engaged, averred Beatrice. 

- Well, there is Mother calling us to lunch. I pro- 
mised to get it and I haven’t. However, husbands and 
sweethearts are more important. And remember, I 
warn you, Trixie, solemn... You had better keep away 
from Mr. Plummer. He’s dangerous. You’d better 
stick to John. 


Ill 


The Midshipman had her own will, however, she could 
not endure it to see Charlotte moping, and Cecily being 
much off of her hands now, she naturally gave more 
time to the Chief Engineer. 

- Why don’t you take to riding? she asked one 
day. It’s wicked to stay so much in the house. In the 
garden you’re always meeting the passengers... for Mrs. 
Duke’s former hut was now occupied by two elderly 
spinsters, very respectable, Miss Clark and Miss Rea- 
mer, they were called, and their only occupation was 
to sit about in the garden and gush about the climate 
and the view. 

- I haven’t been on a horse for years, objected 
Charlotte. Not since I was a little girl on the farm. 

- It’s the easiest thing in the world, argued Beatrice. 
The pony Tom is as gentle as a kitten. If you ride as- 
tride you don’t have to learn. You just sit in the saddle 
and that’s all. 

Now it was the Midshipman’s idea that if Char- 
lotte would ride she would naturally fall in with Mr. 
Plummer. He was out for a gallop every day, either 
alone, or with some of their party. Both Miss Cody 
and Miss Howard were fine horsewomen. The former 
had a most masterful ease and grace when astride a 
horse and Sylvia was very dainty on a side saddle and 
almost as daring as the Midshipman herself. 

In time Charlotte Gaylord was persuaded, though 
she insisted on a side saddle as more lady like. 

- All the better if she falls, perhaps, thought Bea- 
trice. Mr. Plummer will save her in his arms, there 
112 


will be an explanation and then a wedding. He is real- 
ly just the husband for Charlotte. 

She helped her make a habit, that would be suit- 
able. They decided on black as most becoming. Miss 
Gaylord had a spirited carriage and showed courage 
and perseverance when mounted. Beatrice made her a 
velvet cap with a white feather and insisted on broad 
white cuffs and a deep collar. Miss Gaylord’s complex- 
ion was dark but of the quality of pansies and her oval 
face was illumined by large dark eyes, that could flash 
with fire and fun when they were excited, though 
usually were inclined to be mournful. 

- That’s right, you’re doing nobly! The Midship- 
man would praise her, herself careless of her capering 
pony. Beatrice wore a blue habit, rode sidewise and 
loved nothing more than a mad reckless gallop. 

The valley was teeming with lovely roads; there 
was the mountain drive that skirted the bay, but back 
some three miles in the hills, theie was the sea beach, 
as level and firm as turf, there were the connecting 
roads that were more inclined to be dusty. But the 
best road, according to the taste of the Midshipman, 
was a long winding canyon filled with sycamores, with 
a rocky stream bubbling down sinuously to be forded 
and reforded by plashing hoofs. It was this road that 
w T as a favorite with Mr. Plummer and here Beatrice 
had laid the plan for her romance. They would meet 
the, artist sometime, she would lose them with a furious 
gallop, where Charlotte would not dare to follow. Mr. 
Plummer would, of course, remain behind, and then 
118 


Providence and natural feelings would do the lest. She 
had pictured it all out in her enthusiasm. The white 
mottled trunks of the gnarled sycamores for a decor- 
ation, through which Charlotte’s black habit and white 
plume would show effectively. The pony, Tom, was al- 
so white and quite in harmony; the mountain stream 
would make him shy a little sometimes. Her own po- 
ny, a strawberry from Montana, would go anywhere 
full speed through fire and water. Mr. Plummer, quite 
sedate on his chesnut gelding, would he ideal as protec- 
tor, guide and friend. Miss Knox had hardly succeeded 
in imagining him as a lover, but she trusted he could 
play the part if moved. Sometimes she herself had giv- 
en him a coquettish glance to try him and she was 
pleased to see that he was not slow or loth to respond. 
With the stage thus set, and the performers trained, 
Beatrice Knox spent her evenings with the art students 
not divulging the secret plans that her heart harbored, 
though teased by all the youngsters for her thoughts. 

With the Purser, Cecily Blount, who shared her 
hut, she learned to be w T ary and w r ise. Cecily herself 
was not communicative these days, and, since her 
posing for her portrait occupied the mornings, and the 
afternoons usually gave way to parties and excursions, 
the practice of the dances was discontinued, and the 
pianist consequently set at liberty^. Indeed, music and 
dancing and novel-writing and poetizing were gradually 
deteriorating and falling into neglect on board this 
good ship, the Morganatic. Tessie Duke had been 
wicked enough to say that the ship had hove to and 
114 


cast anchor in order that all the crew might devote 
their time to fishing for the Man who was overboard; 
and the Midshipman was inclined to admit Tessie was 
right. She did not hint this to her mess-mates, how- 
ever, for she was interested in her own nets and lines. 
She told herself that she, at least, was working from an 
altruistic motive and she saw herself succesfully land- 
ing her catch and then handing him with a flourish to 
his rightful owner. She had come to love Charlotte 
more than all the other officers unless it was the zephyr- 
like wistful Sylvia, who was pretty much monopolized 
by Captain Cody. Just now it was the Purser who 
claimed secondary attention from Beatrice, and a friend- 
ship with Sylvia could wait. Cecily was plainly in the 
best position to fish. Just what she had already hooked, 
if anything, was a mystery that Beatrice felt impelled 
to solve. 

- It must be hard work, posing, she said comfort- 
ingly one afternoon when Cecily had been complaining 
of fatigue. Couldn’t Mr. Plummer have given you a 
more restful position? 

- The pose is significant and I love it, replied Ce- 
cily. Of course, it is hard to maintain, but Mr. Plum- 
mer lets me rest every ten minutes. He says I stand 
like a statue. I tell him I do not wish to stand like a 
statue, I wish to be a woman full of passion. I want 
him to paint motion, not rest; the music of motion ia 
my idea. 

- And what does he say to that? 

- Oh, he laughs at me as if I w r ere a child and says 


115 


I do not understand painting. He says the problem 
is entirely of accuracy and if he can reproduce me stan- 
ding I will seem to move. 

- Does he paint while you are resting or only when 
you pose? asked Beatrice who was more interested in 
what the two were doing than in any theories of paint- 
ing or of art. 

- Sometimes, he puts in the background or lays the 
under tones of the figure. It is so interesting to see a 
painter at work. He charges up and down like one in a 
frenzy. His head is thrown back, his eyes on fire, his 
whole face, his whole figure aglow like one inspired. 

- Does he wear one of those smocks like artists get- 
ting photographed at their easels? 

- He has one but I have never seen him wear it; I 
suppose it would be uncomfortable in hot weather. For 
my part, I am glad that he doesn’t. I get the poise of 
his figure much better. I am thinking of working up 
a dance that will represent an artist painting a por- 
trait. 

- I suppose women portrait painters don’t charge 
up and down, mused the Midshipman. Charging up 
and down is only characteristic of the male. 

- I would wear a man’s costume, of course. I could 
only think of it as a male impersonation. 

- A woman’s legs are too short, said Beatrice dis- 
couragingly, really meaning that her friend had short 
legs. 

- Yes, that is the most difficult thing to overcome. 
Girls on the stage always look absurd in man’s costume 
116 


when they attempt to stride. 

- If it were Captain Cody, now, I think she would 
get an effect of striding. 

- She gets that from a trick of the skirts. Haven’t 
you noticed how she short-steps in riding breeches? 

- But once on a horse she looks quite commanding. 

-Well, my dear, I can’t do my dance on a horse, 

any more than my character could paint on horseback. 

- I really believe Mr. Plummer could do that. He 
is as free as a centaur on horseback. 

Now, it must be admitted that the Midshipman 
was a trifle malicious in turning the conversation from 
painting into riding. Cecily Blount had never acquired 
the art of riding. She was, in fact, mortally afraid of a 
horse, and rendered dizzy by being lifted from the 
ground. 

- Do you read sometimes when you are resting? 
she inquired fearing that Cecily would drop the subject 
altogether. 

- No, no, we are too much interested for reading. 
Sometimes, he shows me photographs of nudes. It’s 
wonderful the collections of photographs that artists 
are permitted to purchase. Nothing of the kind is ever 
seen on the market. Though, as a dancer, I might be 
permitted to buy them, I should think. 

- Maybe they are photographed privately and not 
intended for sale. 

- No, they are professionally done for artists. The 
Italian ones of men are especially beautiful. The French 
go in more for women’s figures. 

117 


- But isn’t it a little embarassing to be looking at 
such photographs with a man? 

- Why, surely you have walked with a man in a 
public museum! 

- Yes... but alone in his studio, and you say these 
photographs are more... more... 

- More intimate you mean. Yes, that is true. But 
nobody would be embarassed with Mr. Plummer. Why 
you wouldn’t mind posing so yourself for him. He is 
interested in the figure as a study. 

- Well, I think he is interested sometimes as a 
man. I don’t believe he would consider Miss Gaylord 
as a study. 

This was a fling that Cecily had to parry; even at 
the risk of a little indiscretion. 

- I don t think he is interested in Charlotte Gay- 
lord more than in any woman. It is she who gives that 
impression with her moping silence. 

- You must remember they have been friends for 
several years. 

- Well, my goodness, hasn’t he been friends with 
lots of women for several years? If we were to judge 
from her hints and languishing glances, we would 
think he had never met another woman besides her in 
all his life, before he hove into the waters of this ship. 

- I sometimes think we all of us here look on him 
as if he had been specially created for our amusement. 
I suppose he has had experiences before. 

- Experiences! scorned Cecily. I should say so! 
A man doesn’t live in Paris without experiences. Esp- 
118 


ecially if he is handsome and an artist. And I doubt 
not he was no chicken when he went abroad. 

- It is different for a man from what it is for a wo- 
man, admitted Beatrice. 

- Some women ; I do not intend it shall be differ- 
ent for me. 

- What? Surely you wouldn’t... Beatrice hesitated 
breathless. 

- Why shouldn’t I, pray tell me? Cecily became 
dramatic. Of course, I should, and will, again and 
again. Oh, I am not going to be one of those women 
like Marion Cody and Letitia Swan who go about spout- 
ing theories about their independence and equality. I 
am going to be independent and equal and not talk 
about it. The men are that way and I respect them 
for it. 

- I suppose Letitia and even Captain Cody would 
have the men to be like the women, and not the wo- 
men to become like the men. 

- They say they would, yes, said Cecily scornfully, 
but notice with what contempt they speak of a boy or 
a milksop and how they run after a man who has seen 
the world. Why they are both after Mr. Plummer this 
minute. That’s why I like you. You make friends with 
John. 

- John is as manly as Mr. Plummer, defended 
Beatrice stoutly. 

- I don’t say he isn’t manly He may be. But I 
think he wouldn’t claim all the experiences of a man 
of thirty four. 

119 


- Miss Gaylord says Mr. Plummer is thirty five. 

- Well, he’ll be thirty five more, before he falls for 
her prudishness. 

In such heat the conversation came to a close. 


The Midshipman wandered down to the lower terrace, 
stopping to play with the stones in the rivulet of the 
acequia. She took care to keep out of sight of the art- 
ist’s studio, being sheltered by the curvature of the 
hill. The terrace had the form of a semi-circle and Mr. 
Plummer dwelt on the extreme northern end. The Mid- 
shipman’s hut was situated on the southern segment but 
the terrace walks were much longer below the hill. So 
the third one was a favorite walk with her, looking dir- 
ectly off as it did on grassy meadows, dotted here and 
there with old live oaks that had something of the char- 
acter of apple trees in the distance and seemed domes- 
tic as well as antique and romantic. She strolled along 
the terrace... for some distance, and was just about to 
approach that part of the curve that would bring the 
artist’s studio wall into view, when she turned and was 
about to retrace her steps, but lingered looking dream- 
ily toward the ocean, here in vista framed with sloping 
hills of green. 

Then she heard her name called from below. 

- Beatrice! Beatrice! Come down here! 

- Why, it’s Mrs. Swan at her table! She has been 
asking me to come and see it. I’ll go now. 

Letitia, true to her plan, had got the gardener to 


120 


build her a table where she could write. It was under 
a live-oak that overspread a great boulder, a block of 
granite as big as the Midshipman’s hut that made a 
sheltering wall from the wind. The table was built sol- 
idly of rough planks and had a drawer-like cupboard 
on one side underneath to keep the manuscripts and 
blotters sheltered from the weather. It also had a bench 
seat with a back, but long enough to lie down on if the 
poetess should be fatigued. She had carried down two 
blue silk-covered cushions; she had a dove-blue blot- 
ter on the table, a silver inkstand and pens were ar- 
rayed, and a sheet of paper fastened down to the blot- 
ter with thumb tacks in case a passing breeze should 
attempt to lift it. 

- You surely have everything convenient, admired 
the Midshipman. You ought to do some beautiful 
poems here. And just the perfect glimpse of the sea 
too, and the upper world shut out by the tree and 
boulder. 

- I like blue about me when I write, remarked 
Mrs. Letitia fondly. It clarifies my thoughts and bears 
them outward. Have you ever studied the effects 
of different colors? I have planned to write a whole 
book about it. 

- I have thought of colors only as being becoming 
to my complexion, laughed the Midshipman. But I 
soon get stranded for I can only find one... blue. Red 
makes me green. Yellow makes me purple. Green 
makes me liver-colored... and pink makes me a fool! 

- I think only of the effect on my thoughts, smiled 


121 


Letitia. Yellow makes me think of myself. Red makes 
me think of others. Green makes me think of death... 
and blue carries me into the abstract and the intellec- 
tual. 

- You could rig up a kind of wheel like roulette 
and turn on any spigot of thought you needed. 

- I have it in my blotters, said Mrs. Swan - and 
she drew a variety of them from her cupboard - Here’s 
a brown one. I use that when I want to think of the 
earth, of the autumn, the garnering season, thrift, and 
things practical. 

- My purse serves me for that, replied the Midship- 
man. But here is a white one. What is that? 

- I keep it for such times as I am tired of all the 
colors. Sometimes the colors get such a power and a 
fascination over me that I am overwhelmed and can’t 
think at all. 

- But black! I never before saw a black blotter. 

- Yes: I had to have that dyed to order. I use it 
for grief, but it dulls me. I have never succeeded in 
writing anything on black. Perhaps it is the white pa- 
per that distracts me. But I keep it to gaze at some- 
times. Gazing intently at black is often restful. 

- I wish you’d read me something that you’ve writ- 
ten down here. I’m sure it must be permeated with 
this pastoral peace of landscape. 

- Pastoral peace of landscape is good. I’ll jot it 
down. I might use it in a poem. 

- Read something, urged the Midshipman, when 
the jotting was finished, and stowed away in a card 
122 


index that stood ready. 

- I haven’t written anything here, sighed the poet- 
ess. You know I have only had this place two weeks, 
and it always takes me about that time to get en rapport 
with my surroundings. Day before yesterday I did 
think I could write and I just got settled down to my 
thinking. I had my paper and my blotters all ready 
and had adjusted the right color to my mood. I was 
even meditating the first line of free verse, something 
like this... Here Letitia began measuredly to quote. 

I saw in a feathered crest of red top... 
or 

My dreams in a feathered crest of red top... 


- Is red top a kind of bird? asked the Midship- 
man to fill the pause. 

- Grass, my dear, does it sound like a bird? 

- I suppose it was the feathered crest, admitted 
Beatrice ruefully. 

Mrs. Swan gave vent to a loud horse-like laugh. 

- I wish it had been a bird, drat it, she cried. For 
a bird came and took all the grass out of my head. 

- A real bird? ventured the timid Midshipman. 

- Yes, a real bird. It perched up there in the tree. 
I began. 


I saw in a feathered crest of red top... 

And then that little bird... 

123 


M Feept ’ T - It went as cute as a little kitten'. So you 
are there for company, I said. Well, I must go on with 
my poem. 

I dreamed in a feathered crest of red top... 

Which is better, saw, or dreamed? Dreamed conveys* 
the more poetic idea, but dreamed is so over worked 
in poetry. If 1 only knew what was to follow! and 
then... 

“ Peep l rr went that confounded little bird. I spied 
about and tried to get a look at him, but not a horn, 
hide, or hair could I see. Finally, I went back to my 
poem. 


I saw in a feathered crest of... 

then... “ Peep! ” went that God damned little bird. 

Mrs. Swan was telling this so dramatically, with 
humor smiling out of her brown eyes, that by this 
time the Midshipman was shrieking with laughter and 
wiping the tears from her cheeks. 

- I searched for a stone, continued the poetess in 
heated narrative. But devil of a stone could I find. 
This boulder was the only one I could see and if tem- 
per would have lifted it, that bird would have been a 
goner. I tramped up and down these meadows looking 
for a stone till I was hot as a furnace. I ran around 
the tree and hollered shoo ! till my voice was as hoarse 
as a crow’s. But never a bird did I see. Though that 
124 


day I didn’t hear it any more and finally I got to sleep 
on the bench. 

When the Midshipman stopped laughing, Letitia 
took up her story. 

- Well, yesterday, I thought I would try it again. 
But I decided I would start another theme. I have 
been thinking of a poem on the sea, just this glimpse 
as I get it beneath the oak branch and sheltered on the 
sides by the hills. So I began : 

Opaque false medium... 

That was good, wasn’t it? False, because the sea isn’t 
really opaque, but it seems so with the sun shining on 
it. Well, I was just ready for a verb and was consid- 
ering, when that bird began again. 

“ Peep! ” 

I made up my mind I wouldn’t notice him. There isn’t 
any bird I said over and over. Then it went again. 

“ Peep! ” 

Then I tried to think I liked .to have it there. YeS 
sweetheart, I hear you, I called to it. 

Opaque... 

“ Peep! ” 

Opaque... 

Yes, rose bud, I know. 

Opaque, false medium... 

Well, damn you, why don’t you say peep? I miss it. 
And actually, you know, I did miss it. And I swear to 
you I couldn’t write another word. 

125 


- Has it been here today? asked the Midshipman 
after the risibilities were quieted. 

- No, it hasn’t, but I have expected it every min- 
ute. I filled my bag with oranges, thinking I would 
drive it away if it came. And then the oranges smelled 
so good I ate them all; there were five. They say they 
are bad for the liver. Do you think they’ll hurt me? 
But anyway I couldn’t write on a full stomach. I tried 
to take a nap on the bench, but I think I must have 
slept too much yesterday. Oh, this literary life is no 
joke ! 

- Why, you look right up to Mr. Plummer’s gate- 
way if you turn a little! It’s just clear of the corner 
of the boulder! 

- Yes! said Letitia a little confusedly as if an ex- 
planation was expected, and she really had not any to 
give. 

- I should think it might distract your attention 
from the blotters. You say the sight of any house takes 
your thoughts. 

- Well, his gate is shut most of the time and I 
don’t see anything but the vines. There are very few 
people going there in the day time. I can’t answer of 
course, for the night. 

- Oh, I don’t suppose you’re down here in the 
night... The Midshipman seemed a trifle embarassed. 
You couldn’t very well see to write by moonlight and a 
lantern would be awkward I imagine. 

- Still moonlight is good enough to see some things 
by, said Letitia in a manner of darkly hinting. 

126 


- John and I don’t have any trouble, laughed Bea- 
trice. He paints moonlight beautifully, you ought to 
see. I might take you to his studio some day. 

- I avoid studios and men, as a rule. What is this 
I hear about Mrs. Duke’s party? 

- Just a frolic. We are all to be invited. The men 
are to dress as women and the women as men. 

- I think the idea is disgusting. 

- Oh, just some sport, among friends. I have sent 
for a suit of my brother. A real midshipman, you 
know 7 he is in the navy. 

- What do you think I w 7 ould look well as? 

The poetess began to show signs of interest. 

- Why don’t you go as a jockey? I have a pair of 
riding breeches and boots. I got them for long jaunts 
and have never w r orn them. I can make you a beauti- 
ful cap. 

- I have a good figure for it. Don’t you think so? 

- Stunning! I’ll conceal your hair with the cap. 

- I w T onder w r Uat Cecily will wear, speculated the 
Chief Steward, after she had decided the jockey would 
do. 

- Something oriental, I fancy. 

- How ridiculous the men will look in skirts! That 
is one thing remarkable about a woman: if she w ? ants 
to take a man’s place she can, but for a man to be a 
woman is absurd. 

- A woman is more adaptable, said Beatrice. 

- There you hit the nail on the head. A woman 
can understand a man better. I should say to general- 
127 


ize a little, that any woman can understand any man, 
but no man can understand any woman. In fact, I 
have written that down. I am preparing a book of 
epigrams for publication. 

- Well, I am sure I can’t understand Mr. Plum- 
mer. I should think he would marry Charlotte Gay- 
lord. When he does I will say I understand him. T 
think she is perfectly sweet. 

- Another woman is winding him around her fin- 
ger. You can interpret a man’s actions by his vanity. 

- I should think his vanity would be appeased by 
the fidelity of Charlotte. 

- There, my dear, you put your finger on the sit- 
uation. His vanity is appeased but it is also doubled by 
the fidelity of Charlotte toward him and the infidelity 
that he sports toward her. Oh, I wish I were in her 
shoes for a moment! I would make him crawl and bite 
the dust. And some day she is going to do it. Mark 
my words. Charlotte is not all gentleness and forbear- 
ance. When she gets him she will tame him, or I’m 
no prophet. 

- I don’t think so; she’s all sensitiveness and feel- 
ing. 

- Well, feeling and sensitiveness too are weapons 
that make a man tremble, if properly wielded, and 
Charlotte Gaylord is no fool I can tell you. In that she 
is different from Cecily Blount, who throws herself at a 
man’s head like a pumpkin. 

- A pumpkin, if it hits a man’s head, is liable to 
knock him over, sighed Beatrice. 

128 


- But he gets up again, and the pumpkin is busted. 
I know what I am talking about. 

- Well, for my part, I wouldn’t have anything to 
do with a man who had been bowled over. And I think 
Charlotte will show the same spirit. 

- Good Lord, girl, every man has been bowled over 
a dozen times. There are thousands of women who 
make a business of bowling. 

- Men needn’t be nine pins all the same. 

- Needn’t be: but you’ll find that they are. I’ll 
bet dollars to doughnuts John has had his tumbles. 

- Well, 1 have been in lov T e twice myself. And 
John is a little soft, that’s a fact. But the women are 
as bad as the men. 

Mrs. Swan grew moody for a moment. 

- Even Captain Cody has her weaknesses, I fancy, 
she said finally. Though she does succeed in covering 
them pretty well. 

- You mean...? The Midshipman was breathless. 

- Well, I don’t have a view of that Man’s gate- 
way for nothing. I see who likes to take a little pro- 
menade. 

- I thought it would be Sylvia rather than the Cap- 
tain. Miss Howard is such a responsive little soul. 

- There is a fine woman, pronounced the Chief 
Steward. 

- Oh, yes, she is the favorite everywhere. I don’t 
think even Charlotte would be jealous of her. 

- She needn’t be. But the other, look out! 

They were interrupted by the bell to dress for 


129 


dinner. 


- Matey! exclaimed Captain Cody of the Morganatic, 
pausing in her pacing of the quarter-deck and glancing 
down fondly on Sylvia Howard, who, stretched out on 
one of their ship’s bunkers, was dreamily gazing out 
the port-hole. - Matey, even the Midshipman is getting 
it... I refer to our disease: the mal-de-mer-man. 

- Oh, I don’t think so, Cody, replied Sylvia. To 
speak in sea terms, they are only chumming in a com- 
panion way. 

- Stand away and hold fast there, now, darling, 
and don’t get cleverer than your superior officer. It’s 
dangerous. It has cost many a young gallant his pro- 
motion. 

- What have you noticed lately that makes you 
think them intimate? 

- Well, from known latitude and longitude we 
make a dead reckoning. My longitude is, the Mid- 
shipman is a devilish little fascinator, and my latitude 
is, that the Man takes all the latitude there is. 

- I think he is only sporting about. 

- And she is sporting, too, but I see breakers. 
They’re well off to the leeward, but there are breakers. 

- She’ll tack and luff before she strikes them. 

- It’s difficult to luff when under heavy canvas. I 
think we ought to put a flea in her ear. 

- She’d resent it. I think it wouldn’t do, Cody. 

- Then you must think of something. Make love 


130 


to him yourself. I really am very partial to the Mid- 
shipman. 

- She’s a dear, but don’t you think she is anchored 
to John? 

- I suspect John of being only a hedge. I take it a 
kedge yields in a stiff gale. 

- A little yielding is a good thing for high spirits. 
I wish we had kedges for husbands. 

- Why, surely you don’t feel a strain on your main 
mast ! 

- My sails are all furled, Sir, and bound with their 
thimbles. But sometimes I long to spread them and 
pull on the hawser. 

- And drag the kedge? 

- If only I had a kedge to drag. I begin to see the 
advantages of matrimony. 

- Really, my dear, you alarm me. 

- Why, haven’t you often said the same thing? 
If only now I were married, say to Mr. Morgan, and I 
were this ship’s owner, and you her Captain, wouldn’t 
we dare to heave on board this Man? 

- We tried to heave once and the crew mutined. I 
sometimes think we made a mistake in landing our 
first passengers. 

- 1 suppose you will go to their party? 

- Certainly, my dear, I shall go as the Lord High 
Mayor of London. Won’t you go as my page? 

- I was planning to go as a Russian gypsy. You 
know, I have a costume... I packed the jacket in and I 
can make the rest. 

131 


- You will be the best one of them all. And I want 
you to outshine that unspeakable Turk. 

- I think she calls it Persian, but no matter. 

- I’ll lend you my bracelets for ear-rings, and your 
riding boots will answer very well. What is Charlotte 
Gaylord going to wear? 

- She’s borrowed a plaid suit from the Misogynist 
and is going as a gambler, I believe. 

- Humph! Well, tis the land of Bret Harte. But 
all this is taking us far from the Midshipman. 

- Now, Cody, you positively must not meddle. 
The Midshipman has more ballast than you or I. 

- Ballast! I scorn ballast. I cast it overboard. By 
God, 1 wish a sand bag would strike that Man on the 
head. 

- Sand bag the Man all you want to, Sir. But the 
Midshipman is a free spirit and should remain one. 

- I believe you are right, Mr. Howard, and I 
thank you for towing on behind. It is a weakness of mine 
that I take too much wind sometimes, and I am sensi- 
tive on the subject of the Midshipman. 

- Even the Doctor is going to the party. She took 
me to her room and showed me her costume. It is pi- 
rate and she has made hat and boot tops out of wrap- 
ping paper. They really look like leather and flop 
wonderfully. And you ought to see her pistols and her 
cutlass! Everything made out of card board and ex- 
press paper. She really presents a swagger figure. 

- It’s you, Matey, for getting all the confidences. 
Are the antediluvian passengers going, too? 

132 


- Yes, as old tars. They’ve got things from the 
'shops in Santa Barbara. 

- Oh, darn the novel! I wish it was written, and 
we could go in for larks all the winter. 

- We pretty much are, don’t you think? I haven’t 
written a line since I came here. And Letitia Swan... 

- Wait, I will compose a Letitia Swan. No one 
shall say I have not committed literature before turn- 
ing into the Lord High Mayor. Listen, I’ll do a line 
and then you. Now don’t beat me, Matey. Do be stu- 
pid. 

They began reciting with sonorously measured 
accent. 

The Captain : 

I see a thread of palest silver fluttering from 
the tail of my cat. 

The Mate: 

It has been discharged from the third ring of 
her tail. I count the rings from the tip. 

The Captain; 

Like the petal of a belated plum blossom it 
flutters down, a plum blossom that 
blooms in the autumn, 

The Mate : 

Faint into my soul-thought it flutters and I 
am saddened without knowing why. 

The Captain : 

The gravel of the garden walk is mauve. The 
cat’s feet embroider a pattern on its 


133 


velvet, 


The Mate: 

Like a pattern embroidered on my memory. 
But a wind drives the silver thread 
afar... 

The Captain : 

And only the embroidered pattern remains on 
the walk, soon crushed by the sharp 
jaws of the returning lawn mower. 

- Really, Cody, we ought to make a volume. I 
think we could find a poetry magazine that would re- 
view it. 

-And think of the satisfaction for Letitia Swan. 
But seriously, I am worried about the Midshipman. 
I’m going to consult with the Misogynist. 

- Cody, don’t! 

- Oh, I shan’t cite instances, of course. One can 
talk with the Misogynist without wallowing in person- 
alities. 

- And he can talk personalities, too, with great 
frankness. 

- But always holding the real thing back. Drat his 
discretion! It’s the most exasperating kind of frank- 
ness there is, when one tells everything but the one 
thing that’s wanted. It’s like eating artichokes without 
getting at the core. 

- The leaves bear the most delicate flavor. 

- There is no denying it, we’re running out of sea- 
dog, Matey. I mean to say the bulk-head of the Mis- 
134 


ogynist’s knowledge is stored in the hold. 

- And he only tosses us the spars and scuppers, 
Sir. But with those given we can create a whole ship. 


The Yacht party, as Mrs. Duke laughingly called it, 
had been a great success for the Midshipman. In the 
first place she had looked very natty and very saucy in 
her brother’s suit. In the second place, John, clad in 
one of her own evening gowns, had been a regular socie- 
ty belle, and he had played the piano an hour, by the 
clock, for the dancing on the veranda. In the third 
place, because she was deprived of her partner, Mr. 
Plummer had danced with her most of the time. He 
said his character was that of a sailor’s sweetheart and 
therefore it was fitting they should be together. He had 
certainly played the part with propriety but there had 
been a touch of some knowledge underneath that made 
Beatrice feel that he knew somewhat of sailors and 
their sweethearts, and she thought of her brother, with 
a positively wicked thrill of joy, for the fact that he 
was away in the world for himself and not being watched 
by their mother. 

She had intimated as much to the Man when they 
were walking on the beach while Cecily Blount was 
dancing. Mr. Plummer had explained he could not 
see her as it would upset his idea of his picture. 

Yes, the Man had admitted there were advantages 
of being away from one’s mother, but he himself, hav- 
ing left home when he was very young, had always 
135 


thought of his years of adolescence with regret because 
he had not known the purity of a home and a mother. 

Whereupon, the shocking Beatrice had argued what 
was the use of all this purity in the home, when in 
reality it did not exist there, the outwardly sainted 
mother carrying on a separate life with the father that 
could only be explained by the word hypocrisy when 
the son should realize the facts later on. And then, 
she had added, what is all this purity talk, in child- 
hood and adolescence, when it is to be overturned by 
the youth when he is a man. Is not the result of the 
shock of an impure world, a shock that he is sure to 
receive, much more ruinous to the foundations of his 
character, especially if they have been founded on 
made ground? 

And at this Mr. Plummer had sighed and admit- 
ted that he was thankful for the knowledge of the 
world in his adolescence. That it had taught him the 
use of pleasure and the need of restraint, and kept him 
from many an unjust judgment of others. 

Then, Cecily Blount had come out on the beach 
and dragged him in to see her in a new dance she was 
creating. 

But the serious talk on the beach had been pleas- 
ant. There is something very cosy, walking on the 
flat hard beach, at night, with the waves slipping up 
to one’s feet, but stopping and never wetting, they 
are in such control. They seem so mysterious run- 
ning in from the darkness, and they have messages to 
whisper of the wide world and the island shores they 
136 


have laved, with palm trees and strange brown people 
running naked. 

Mr. Plummer had proved a fascinating dancer. 
He did not know the steps, like John and Ben, and 
there was not the childish delight of skipping about 
adroitly. But he had a way of taking his partner in his 
arms that was protecting and made her willing to yield 
to him. What matter about the step of a waltz, for 
instance, if one gets the rhythm, the poetry of the mu- 
sic? In Mr. Plummer’s dancing, the music did not 
seem to be the inspiration of his movement. It was the 
medium in which his body floated, he actually swam 
it, took the floods in his arms. 

When she told him of this, he had said he was 
very fond of swimming and perhaps it was something 
the same sensation he got in dancing... Only, he added 
gallantly, dancing has the advantage of allowing me 
to rescue a girl and hold her to my breast. 

Now the Midshipman had denied that she had ever 
been in that position and asked him if he prefered dan- 
cing with Cecily Blount. 

He had intimated that one little strand of the 
Midshipman’s sunshine hair, brushing against his 
cheek, was more than the wealth of ten dancers in his 
arms. 

And the Midshipman had apologized for her hair 
getting so frowsy but that it was actually bursting from 
that absurd little hat. 

When she had reproved him mischievously for not 
dancing with Charlotte and the others, he had replied 
137 


that to dance with any of them would seem significant 
and now to dance with her all the time was so evident- 
ly a harmlesss flirtation. Besides, in so short a round, 
for it was certain John’s endurance had a limit, it 
would .l?e impossible to dance with them all, as polite- 
ness would require. Besides, they, too, were enjoying 
themselves, and why worry? Mr. Morgan and Quinn 
were doing the honors. 

Mr. Morgan, who was magnificently gotten up as a 
Jewish matron, wig, heavy complexion and red eyelids, 
was impartially dealing out his attentions, supple- 
mented as he was by the blonde Misogynist, a beauty of 
a certain age in full evening toilette. Ben danced with 
Tessie, as a matter of course. She was a Bowery swell 
and he was a Bowery maid and they succeeded in mak- 
ing sport for everybody. 

Once, when Mr. Plummer and the Midshipman 
had gone out into the avenue of eucalyptus trees that 
were towering and massive by the cottage and he wished 
to show her the effect against the stars, she had asked 
him about the possible futures for Ben and John and 
had been pleased to learn what a warm interest he took 
in all young painters. 

It is not so important whether we make great art 
or not, he had said to her. The important thing is a 
chance for self expression and free work. If they are 
in earnest, always encourage them and assist them. 
People make a fetish, these days, of results. 

Then, she brought the subject around again to 
Charlotte. She now found great pleasure in her paint- 
138 


ing. 

She did one time, Mr. Plummer had said serious- 
ly. But now she seems to be losing interest. It is the 
old story ; in the end the woman comes to claim the 
artist. 

The Midshipman was just ready to launch out that 
Charlotte should marry, and follow up with a little eu- 
logy on all her domestic virtues, when they were inter- 
rupted by Captain Cody and the Chief Steward, who 
actually had come out to call them in to supper. 

Mrs. Duke wore the costume of a cook and in ev- 
ery way the party had been merry. 

The morning after, the Midshipman wanted to talk 
things over and finally decided to choose the Doctor for 
her confidante. Miss Maxwell had been the sensation 
of the evening in her pirate costume and Mr. Morgan 
and all the men had paid her especial compliments. 

Beatrice found her, neatly gowned in a dove-blue 
morning dress, but she had not opened up her micro- 
scope as yet, though she was sitting at her table before 
the window. 

On the microscope desk was a rose in a glass. Be- 
atrice recognized it as one from the rambler that half- 
covered one side of the stables. It was of the variety 
known as the Gold of Ophir, one of these indescribable 
perfections of floriculture that seem to combine all the 
beauty of all the roses and to add something of human 
beauty as well in the texture of the flesh of its petals, 
still painting on that metallic lustres of gold and of 
green and of lilac. 

139 


It lias no scent, complained the Doctor, while 
Beatrice was exclaiming at its loveliness. I, too, thought 
it the acme of the garden until Mr. Morgan com- 
plained it had no scent. Even the thorns are gold and 
mahogany and the foliage is the marvel of a Cellini. 
But now I can think of nothing else than what Mr. 
Morgan has said. It has no scent, it is an artificial rose. 

- Drop a little perfume in the glass, suggested the 
Midshipman. I think it is the very climax of beauty. 

- No, no, Mr. Morgan is right. Better the pink 
Florentine roses, or the sweet eglantine that grows in 
the fields. That has youth, it has the freshness of the 
dew. It has the spirit of the breath of the morning. 

- But, Miss Maxwell, look at this warm flush on 
the yellow and the whole sprinkled over with dust of 
green. I don’t see what beauty you find in youth. Ma- 
turity has a thousand subtle shades. 

- It has that, but not having youth, all the sub- 
tleties are but powder of ashes. 

- Well, I will bring you a whole sheaf of the pink 
roses and you shall give me this exquisite one instead. 
I am always afraid of the thorns. Mr. Morgan told me 
they were poisonous. 

- You may better leave this on the glass. It is 
more fitted to me and my surroundings. 

- But, Miss Maxwell, you and your surroundings 
are perfect. You were the youngest one of the party, 
last night. 

- Only a semblance of youth, my dear. I have no- 
thing that can compare with your years. 

140 


- I’m sure when I am fifteen years older, I will be 
fat and blowsy and horrid. 

- No matter, you are young now. Enjoy it. I real- 
ize now I threw away my youth. 

- What matter! if you find it later on, you know 
how to cherish it, to appreciate it. 

I can never be brought to your way of thinking, 
laughed the Midshipman. Now, last night, I found the 
the conversation of Mr. Plummer in every way more 
satisfying than that of Ben or John. Of course, the 
boys are more fun. I like them too, but one gets a con- 
tent out of the experience that comes from years. 

- I thought the same as you when I was a school- 
girl'. I admired the professors, my teachers more than 
I did the boys. But Mr. Plummer proved himself a man 
of thinking. He did not waste his time on the older 
women. 

- Oh, that silly costume made him feel like a frol- 
ic. In his every-day habit he would think me a green 
school-girl. I wish Miss Gaylord had worn something 
pretty, like Sylvia Howard. Charlotte always is trying 
to appear her very worst. She really is beautiful, don’t 
you think so? 

- She has beauty, but there are signs of its passing. 
It is better never to have beauty than to have it and 
lose it. 

- But Charlotte is young, the same age as Sylvia. 
And Sylvia’s beauty is not passing, I am sure. 

- Miss Howard has a spiritual buoyancy that keeps 
her fresh. Miss Gaylord is inclined to melancholy and 
141 


perhaps envy. 

- But not jealousy... do you think? 

- Jealousy comes later; it is the result of a love en- 
joyed and then... then the joy for some reason has 
ceased. But why should I be talking of love? I am a 
scientist and not a poet like the others. 

- A scientist perhaps can talk about it with more 
observation, laughed Beatrice. And then even if you 
are a scientist, Miss Maxwell, you are a human being 
much like us all. 

- Now that we are on the subject of poets, said the 
Doctor, I wish we could do something for Letitia. She 
is unhappy and lonely and awkward but she has talent 
and she has a very kind heart. She thinks a great deal 
of you, by the way. 

- Tell me, what is the matter with Mrs. Swan? 
Does she really hate men as she says she does? She 
seemed happy to be playing the part of one last night. 
Didn’t she strut about and talk just like a jockey? 

- I don’t imagine either you or I an authority on 
jockeys, but as you say, Letitia did seem to enjoy her- 
self. 

- Well, then, if she hates men, she wouldn’t find 
pleasure in being one, would she? 

- My dear, there are some women who go through 
life always dissatisfied with their sex. It would seem 
as if they were intended for men in their souls, but 
their bodies only accent all the weaknesses of women. 

- I think Captain Cody more mannish than Mrs. 
Swan. 

142 


- Yes, Letitia’s mannishness is assumed. It is 
usually so with the women who want to be men, or 
better said, who envy them their masculine privi- 
leges. Letitia Swan has a good heart, generous. You 
must be kind to her, little Midshipman. You must 
remember that you have resilence and youth. 

Beatrice went off to find the Chief Steward at once 
and the ship’s Doctor still did not open her micros- 
cope. Instead she sat looking at the rose in the glass. 
The young girl had been right about its beauty and the 
perfume, as suggested, might be added. Miss Maxwell 
rose, went to her dresser, and brought out a tiny flask 
of old cut crystal. It contained a few drops of attar of 
roses that a friend had brought for her from Ispahan. 
With one of her dissecting needles she let a tiny drop 
fall in the heart of the flower, and then sat long inhal- 
ing its rich fragrance. But her mood changed as her 
watch marked the minutes. She took the rose in her 
fingers and slowly plucked it to pieces, tossing the pet- 
als one by one into her waste basket. Then she threw 
the perfumed water out the window and put away the 
crystal flask whence she had taken it. 

- I am getting in my dotage - she told herself 
aloud, and she drew out her microscope and set to 
work. 


It was the hour to be dressing for dinner, but the Mid- 
shipman gave little heed to it. She was ashamed. 

Yes, she admitted it, she had been tried and 


143 


found wanting. She had done wrong, she had been 
weak, she had yielded, and in yielding she had found 
weakness sweet. 

It all came about in that canyon with the sunlight 
on the spotted trunks of the sycamores. Those splotches 
of pale green are sin. Even the trees themselves have 
the curves of the snake in Eden. Ah! Eden, now she 
realized it was beautiful, gold sands, and dashing wat- 
ers over boulders: pink and lilac with purple shadows 
like the hills. And overhead the blue depths of the sky 
across which the white messenger clouds were racing, 
telling of their treachery to the sea, as if the water 
could not tell it in gentler fashion. 

It all came about from that look she had given 
him when she told him he would find her riding in the 
canyon. She had not told him that she would have 
Charlotte with her. That was the legitimate silence of 
her plot. She had planned to have him meet them, ri- 
ding along, and then she would gallop ahead on sud- 
den pretext and he would naturally have to linger be- 
hind with Charlotte, to protect her since she was a 
timid rider and then... well, the canyon would do the 
rest: the crossing and recrossing of the water, the shel- 
tering hills and precipices to hold them in, the sky 
above to suggest to them their heaven. There was no 
doubt in her mind even now hut what the canyon and 
the horses would do their share. Horses love to he 
crowding together and then they shy and they scamper, 
which makes situations where a fearful damsel and a 
protecting squire are sure to become together. Oh yes, 
144 


the canyon had done its part and so the horses would 
have done theirs but she, the Midshipman, had been 
treacherous, and now she was ashamed to be seen. 

He had met them at precisely the romantic place 
she had intended. Like a centaur he rode down upon 
them, his brown suit blending in with thechesnut stal- 
lion, his hair and beard of the living nature of its 
mane. 

And Charlotte looked very pretty on the black 
mare, quite the princess in her black hat and habit, 
dashed with the flecks of white at cuffs and collar, 
defiant with the white plume overhead. 

In her ow r n dress the Midshipman had been stud- 
ied. The old blue with the saucy jockey cap. Her straw- 
berry roan, too, was in no way stylish or romantic. 
Just a chuckle headed little mustang from the plains. 

Well, they had been surprised or had pretended to 
be surprised Charlotte did not need any pretense in 
this for she had thought Mr. Plummer was with a par- 
ty. In fact, Mr. Morgan had told her he was going and 
she had understood that Joe was to assist. Also Mr. 
Plummer was surprised for he had thought the Mid- 
shipman would be alone. For does a lady make a tryst 
and bring her rival? Ah, he did not know 7 that the 
Midshipman was so sly! 

He had wheeled and accompanied them, however, 
they were going up the stream when he had been coming 
down. They had chatted; it w T as dificult in the narrow 
road to ride three abreast and the wily Midshipman 
spurred her pony on ahead. 

145 


At tho moment when she thought they were get- 
ting personal, she had touched her spur to her pony’s 
flank and thrown the reins on its neck, frho knew what 
that meant and was away like the wind, clattering over 
stones, padding over sand and splashing fleet hoofs 
in the gay water. In all this the Midshipman had re- 
mained loyal, in all ways up to this point she had been 
true. It was the Man who made the trouble, who 
spoiled the game. Why had she not stopped when she 
saw it was defeated? At least, they could all have rid- 
den home together, and perhaps she could have tried 
another ruse. 

For, no sooner had she felt herself well under 
swing of the rapid gallop that she realized that the Man 
had also spurred his horse. He was calling to her, an- 
xiously, perhaps he thought her pony had become un- 
manageable; men are such fools about women! Now 
Charlotte was the one who needed care. 

When the pony heard the clattering hoofs behind, 
she realized that they were in for a frolic and fairly 
flattened herself to the fun. At that time it would have 
been difficult to stop her suddenly for she had indeed 
taken the bit between her teeth. But still the Midship- 
man knew this trick of the pony and how to manage 
it. Her fault was that she was enjoying the flight. 

How they sped! The Midshipman bending over, 
so as to let her body catch as little as possible of the 
wind. She realized that the chesnut stallion would catch 
them in the end, but the rough road gave advantage to 
the Indian pony; she was sure-footed here as a lady in 
146 


her parlor. Lower, lower they seemed to crouch to the 
curving road, louder and louder pounded the clattering 
hoofs of the pursuing stallion. 

Once Beatrice had given a glance behind, her head 
was bent so low it was very easy to get a glance over 
her shoulder where the road curved and she knew it 
would be easy enough to see him. 

He was not bending over as she was doing. There 
was almost a smile ot* triumph on his uplifted face. He 
was guiding his steed not leaving it to pick its way as 
she was doing with her mustang, he was perhaps think- 
ing of a level stretch of sandy road ahead where he re- 
alized it would be easy to overtake her. 

She would not let him. She bowed again to her 
pony’s neck and they sped out on the stretch like an 
arrow. But she felt the mustang’s hoofs were losing on 
the soft road, and already the little flanks were heav- 
ing. 

It was at this point that the Midshipman gave in. 
It was here that she began to want to be overtaken... 
Would his great horse over-ride her? She did not care. 
Would her little mare be crowded in the bushes?... 

But if she had known what would happen she 
would not have slackened. Perhaps she felt then that 
he would kiss her. The chestnut horse gaining, now 
neck and neck, with his rein hand the Man had seized 
the bridle of her pony and his left arm clasping around 
her as they galloped, for the horses were now gaily a- 
tearn together. The Man’s face had descended, had 
come down on hers, his brown eyes were beaming with 
147 


the sport of conquest. You little witch!... was all the 
words he whispered, but he had kissed her on the 
mouth and on the cheeks, on the brow, on the neck, 
as they were riding, and his arms had drawn her firmly 
to his breast and they rode as one being on wild horses. 


Now, she must dress and go to dinner, and meet Miss 
Gaylord and ask her civilly if she got home all right. 
She knew that she was home. She had seen the black 
pony in the stable, probably she had taken a short trail 
up the hill. It had been necessary for Mr. Plummer 
and the Midshipman to walk their horses a mile on the 
sandy roads after they were well out of the canyon 
with its treacherous green splotched sycamores far be- 
hind them. 


CHAPTER VI 


The Engineer 


Charlotte Gaylord was considering an offer of marriage 
from no less a personage than Mr. Morgan. She had 
been anticipating the proposal for several weeks, in a 
way she had even encouraged it, but now that it lay 
before her in the definite even tones of his remembered 
voice, (at the time they had been out to watch the sun- 
set and were seated on a westward-looking hill slope,) 
in a deliberate yet not unimpassioned voice of a man 
who has been married and knows its seriousness, she was 
slow about making her decision and was appraising 
every desire that she possessed. 

Mr. Morgan was rich, he was a cultivated gentle- 
man, he was attractive to both men and women, he 
was not yet out of that period of life known as the 
prime of manhood, and he had given proof of being 
a fond and devoted husband. Surely these were not 
qualities to be thrown aside lightly by one of such 
150 


humble talents as herself. For his wealth she had only 
struggling poverty; for his cultivation only a picked up 
education ; as for age she was not herself in the first 
flower of youth, having arrived to uncertain years of 
discretion. As for her hopes in making any man a de- 
voted wife, she had few illusions on that score. She re- 
alized she w r as petulant, peevish. She was jealous, she 
was envious, she was ambitious; and she knew she had 
an inclination toward gloominess that might develop 
into bitterness as she grew older. She did have sincer- 
ity that was one asset and she possessed a certain beau- 
ty that might ripen, at least that would not fade with 
her fading youth. If she had been naming her talents 
three years ago, she would have put her creative art 
instinct at the head of the list and would have egotis- 
tically considered it out-valuing everything. But dur- 
ing that three years of dire experience, she had come 
to find that many girls were talented in the same way. 
She had observed the enthusiasms of feminine youth 
and their products as they studied under some adored 
master, and then when they had started out for them- 
selves, how they had lost their visions in the dreary 
w-astes of sand. The mirage of their desert had receded, 
and in many cases had gradually disappeared. Her 
own had been drifted under in a simoon of passion. 
She was not sure that it would ever emerge again. 

What had she now that would develop, that wealth 
and a gracious husband would nurture? She was honest 
and would not take advantage of a man’s weakness to 
drive a bargain. If she could not give Mr. Morgan as 
151 


much as he gave her, she would never never enter into 
contract. 

She knew she loved beauty still and could appreciate it. 
This she could share with him and both gain in the 
partnership. Beauty of dress.., yes, she could make 
herself regal; beauty of a home... there he need not 
ever be ashamed of her: furniture, pictures, objects of 
art, garden, landscape effects, music... Also she loved 
poetry and literature, and with opportunity she could 
grow and be his complement. Then, too, she liked peo- 
ple, she could entertain his guests, she could make a 
gracious hostess and sympathetic. She could attract 
young men and women to their home, and the older 
ones would not be turned away unless she willed it. 
She could help him help others who had talent. She 
saw herself a patroness of the arts. True she had al- 
ways hated patronesses, but she, having been an artist, 
might be different. She would turn out this ambitious 
forward set of literary pretenders and take on some 
friends who had some germs of humility and devotion. 

In an uneasy vague way she realized that this im- 
mediate situation might be her danger... She might 
accept Mr. Morgan’s offer through petty spite. It 
would be such a stroke for her to announce some even- 
ing at the dinner table that she was to become the mis- 
tress of this villa and the much speculated at income 
that went with it. How quietly, ho tv modestly she 
would announce it ! How simply she would receive 
their envious congratulations! No, she must not yield 
to this weakness. It was a victory that would be for- 
152 


gotten in a day. For all that it was none the less a 
tempting triumph and she desired it. She was chafing 
bitterly under the position that she now endured. Mr. 
Morgan had allowed her expenses here, putting it that 
she would help Mrs. Stowe to manage the place. It w r as 
not known to the other boarders just what she rec- 
eived for this office but she felt that they looked on her 
as a pensioner... she especially resented the fact that 
Miss Cody had been elected their Captain, or that she 
had crowded in and forced her own election. What 
should have been the head of the table had become the 
foot, and it was the Captain who shouldered all the 
honors. 

As it simmered down in her ratiocination, it was 
Miss Cody, and Miss Cody alone, that she hated. The 
others were but followers of that leader. Sylvia How- 
ard, she genuinely admired and was fond of, notwith- 
standing the fact that she was absurd in her adoration 
of her Captain as she so worshipfully termed her friend. 
Letitia Swan she also liked and also pitied; the villa if 
in a wife’s hand, should be her refuge. Cecily Blount 
would go quickly by the board, it was true. But no one 
would regret her, not even Captain Cody. Beatrice 
Knox would be retained on good behavior, and Miss 
Maxwell, well, there was no harm in the Ship’s Doc- 
tor. Mrs. Duke was already disposed of, and the pas- 
sengers, Miss Reamer and Miss Clark, would disap- 
pear; as a matter of fact, they had not even appeared 
on her horizon ; they were a convenience on the ac- 
count book of Mrs. Stowe. Mrs. Stowe would continue 
153 


to hold her position as general administratrix. She had 
inherited her place from the days of the first wife. In 
no way was Charlotte Gaylord jealous of the first Mrs. 
Morgan. She was proud of her memory even and her 
husband’s respect. Charlotte, herself, had loved before 
and still loved. Also Mr. Morgan knew it, and accepted 
it. So she could accept her husband with his love. They 
would both respect the loves that lay behind them. 

Yes: she still loved Joe Plummer, the graceless 
Joe, and here was the crux, the obstacle to the whole 
proposition. She would marry him to morrow if she 
could get him, though she regretted it and were miser- 
able the day after. And not for triumph would she 
marry him, not for jealousy. Her jealousy would but 
begin when she had secured him. Secured? did she 
tell herself? She was not so foolish, not so vain. She 
doubted if he would be secured for a single week. Joe 
was a Juan, not a Joseph. She would live to fight for 
every loyal kiss he gave. No, if she married Joe, it 
would not be for any delusion as to fidelity. She would 
marry him because she loved him... simply that. 

And what had Joe Plummer to give her that would 
compare with the gifts of Alec Morgan? Money he had 
not, would never have. He was too much of a spend- 
thrift and good liver. Neither position, would he give 
her as an artist’s wife... a successful portrait painter 
stands never high in the world of artists. His patrons 
or rather patronesses, they were all women, would look 
down on her somewhat condescendingly, as the artist’s 
wife. Probably even much of their patronage would 
154 


dwindle. A married man would not command the 
commissions of a bachelor. They would go through the 
world half way between bohemia and respectability, 
neither flesh fish nor fowl. They would quarrel, wran- 
gle, part, perhaps divorce, but she would marry him. 
She would marry him because she loved him. The 
question was merely: would he marry her? This win- 
ter would tell her fate, perhaps; perhaps leave it dang- 
ling. At the end of these winter months she could still 
accept Mr. Morgan, but was that fair to Mr. Morgan, 
and even fair to herself? Could she respect herself be- 
coming the wife of Mr. Morgan when she was doing so 
because cast off by another? She decided in all sincer- 
ity she could not. It was the wife of Joe Plummer, or 
it was failure. 

If only she had a confidante to talk things over! 
Talking serves to clarify one’s mind! She reviewed the 
list of women that were at hand. She knew precisely 
what each would say before she consulted her. Mrs, 
Duke, for example, would he “for”. Mrs. Swan 
“against”, and then gradually she would veer around 
for her own future profit and be clamoring “for” as 
hot-foot and hot-breathed as any. Of course, Cecily 
Blount and Marion Cody were out of the question as 
confidantes and Sylvia Howard would talk it over with 
her hero, the Captain. There was only Beatrice Knox 
left: she was a young thing, but there was the fatuous 
hope that she would stand for the poor man and the 
first love. At any rate, she would be an enthusiastic 
eager listener. Charlotte was actually coming to the 
155 


point of a confidence in the sycamore canyon and then 
Joe had appeared, like the Angel Gabriel without his 
trumpet, and then, the cherub had taken wings and 
flown away and the foolish Gabriel had turned tail and 
gone madly pounding after in a chase that even Char- 
lotte in her jealousy could not divine the finish... so 
strong was her loyal affection for the cherub and so 
ignorant was her horsewomanship of runaway ponies. 
Indeed she had acccepted the shame-faced explanation 
in good faith. Horses are liable to take the bit in their 
teeth, it was a trick of the mustang that even Mr. Mor- 
gan had cautiously mentioned. It was no doubt the 
gallant if not the necessary thing for Joe to rescue her 
and it seemed both had narrowly escaped a tumble 
when he caught her. They might easily have killed the 
horses and themselves. 

At the same time Charlotte felt peevish, even re- 
sentful. Why should the pony have taken the bit be- 
tween its teeth at that moment? And why when it had 
been forced to spit the bit out, had not the two riders 
returned to accompany her? As it was, she had ridden 
on and not found them and had finally taken a short- 
cut home through the lanes. There the stable-boy had 
rendered her uncomfortable with his assurances. Mr. 
Plummer was a fine horseman. It was all right. But 
he would telephone to Mrs. Downing who lived at the 
head of the canyon and ask her if they had passed safe- 
ly... which they were just doing as it turned out at 
that moment, soberly walking their horses that were 
wet and foaming. Well, Charlotte could give her con- 
156 


fidence to Beatrice some other time. But strange to say 
she was no longer in the humor for confidences as the 
days passed, nor were either of them in the humor for 
further riding expeditions alone, though they both pre- 
tended to each other with daily enthusiasm and eager- 
ness that there was nothing else in the world that they 
so much longed for, and they must surely make an ap- 
pointment for tomorrow. 

In her isolation, Charlotte began to think of the 
Doctor, and to cultivate an acquaintance there at least. 
Scientists, she told herself, were used to viewing things 
in the abstract, and might be interested in a general 
hypothesis without becoming curious about individual 
cases. 

She did not know enough of scientific methods to 
realize that before formulating a working hypothesis 
the scientist makes a tabulation of facts, and then ar- 
ranges an explanation that will cover them, Now Dr. 
Maxwell had no facts whatever pertaining to relations 
of the sexes. Reproduction of unicellular organisms, 
it is true, had been her special study, but she had only 
vaguely connected her results with applications to more 
complex orders, and these were followed with a swift 
rush of shame on her part, for she had trespassed on 
realms of thought not suitable to a lady, at least, not 
a spinster of refinement. 

So it was that whatever hypotheses Miss Maxwell 
had to offer were as far from the scientific as possible. 
They were, indeed, of the most romantic nature, her 
ed down from literature of the Middle Ages by people 
157 


who had never verified them. Eloise and Abelard was 
her favorite lov T e story. Paul and Virginia gave her de- 
light, though she always did blush for Virginia to think 
that Paul should have ever made such base proposals. 

- Do you think a woman should marry for love?... 
Charlotte had asked her on one occasion. They were 
sitting on a stone bench in the garden backed in against 
some laurels and bay. 

- Not unless one is fitted for marriage, was the 
Doctor’s immediate answer, but with a start. Love was 
a word to be spoken only in reverence with her, like 
God with some pious thoughtful Puritan. 

- I suppose none of us are fitted for it, when it 
comes to that. Certainly most men aren’t... mused 
Charlotte. 

- You mustn’t take Letitia Swan’s sayings too se- 
riously, rejoined the Doctor. Because she happened to 
be unfortunate does not mean that everyone else should 
be, or has been. 

- I wasn’t thinking of Mrs. Swan. I don’t believe 
she scorns men as much as she thinks she does. Her 
reason is because they scorn her. What I was thinking 
of was... Should one marry a man who is fitted for 
marriage when one doesn’t love him in that way? 

- The thing is impossible, unthinkable. Nice peo- 
ple can only marry for one reason. 

- And yet - people do marry for position... women 
do... we often hear about it - don’t you think? 

- Women, my dear Charlotte, may do so; but you 
and I are interested only in ladies. I am not speaking 
158 


of birth and education only: I am speaking of people 
of refinement and sensitiveness. 

- But if a lady thinks that the man she loves would 
not make a good husband? 

- If her love is deep enough, true enough, it will 
transform him, in time, into a character worthy of her. 
Until that transformation is effected, she must not yield 
to his influence or his wishes. 

- Men’s characters are often formed and hard to 
change. 

- Then a woman’s love must wait. It will be rec- 
ompensed; if not in this life, perhaps in another. It 
cannot be that two souls created for each other shall 
not be brought together in all the aeons of time. 

- You look upon our experience here merely as a 
preparation? asked Charlotte. 

- I should say rather as a stage in our progress. 
In this world, we may not even so much as encounter 
our affinity, though in stages before, we were together. 
It may be the Divine Plan that on this earth our souls 
are to remain alone: a sacrifice, or a punishment may 
be necessary. 

- Or we may meet our affinity and find him mar- 
rying someone else, suggested Charlotte. 

- In that case, he would be unworthy, and not our 
true affinity. But we are talking generalities, not per- 
sonalities, of course. 

- It is the fault of our language, I suppose: “we” 
and “you” are so much easier to say than “one ”... 
our English unfortunately lacks the reflexive verbs. 

159 


From reflexive verbs, the conversation drifted into 
dress-making. And, all the time, Charlotte Gaylord 
was secretly wondering whether Dr. Maxwell had ever 
been in love. 


But whether Letitia Swan should receive her confidence 
or no, she would none the less pronounce judgment on 
the matter. 

- I tell you, Charlotte, when you decide to marry, 
marry for money, and not for love. A man’s poverty 
will incur the contempt of the noblest woman. 

They were sitting on a cliff that immediately over- 
looked the sea. They had been exploring the grounds 
of one of the wealthy residents who was this year tak- 
ing a young bride through Europe. 

- Do you suppose this woman, here, will be happy, 
married to a man thirty years her senior? I wonder if 
she will not finally regret her village school-teaching, 
after she has been sated with her touring and her castle? 

- My dear, we all regret our youth. Even I regret 
the love of Mr. Swan. But the halm to a woman’s re- 
grets is worldly goods. And you must admit that the 
toy castle behind us contains many comforts for a wo- 
man . 

- They say he is hardly received in society. 

- What need she care? She was not born to the 
life anyway. She will take all the more satisfaction in 
her husband. After all, these society lions bring home 
160 


very lean pickings to their dams. They prefer the va- 
riety of feasting in the jungle, and if the wife is trailed 
after, she only gets the horns and hoofs to chew on. 

- Dr Maxwell thinks marriage without perfect love 
is absolutely impossible for people of refinement. 

- 0 fiddlesticks for Priscilla Maxwell and her the- 
ories! What does she know of either marriage or love? 
The love between man and woman is a passion that 
cools as soon as its ends have been accomplished. Real 
love, the loVe that endures between human beings, is 
the Platonic love, and that is found most often between 
individuals of the same sex. A man’s love for a man 
is often life-long, and a woman’s love for a woman 
should be so, but we are such blasted fools as to be for- 
ever running after false gods. I thank Heaven that in 
my old age I have my eyes open. Now, I choose my 
friends from among women. 

- But you tell me you are always getting tired of 
old friends! 

- And seeking new ones, and finding them, too... 
yes, I know it: but is not that an evidence that I have 
faith in my theory? And someday I will find my true 
friend... I know it. 

- And you think this girl, this village school teach- 
er, for instance, will find a life-long friend in her hus- 
band? 

- She may; and she may not; that depends. But 
at any rate, she will have a hospice for other women, 
and if she finds a friend among them, she can retain 
her. 


161 


- But so many young wives look among young men 
for their friends. 

- In Europe, maybe so; not in America. America 
leads the world in the art of friendship. You find this 
idea brought out by all our poets and our novelists... 
Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Emerson, Whittier, Feni- 
more Cooper, Bret Harte, and finally, Walt Whitman. 
Even Poe was influenced by it strongly, but his aesthet- 
ic romanticism was European. America’s contribution 
to loyalty is that of comrades; or, the word of the young 
people I like better... chums. I am going to w r rite a 
volume on it someday. 

- But do you think women can be chums like the 
men? We meddle with each other’s affairs too much, 
and then we separate. 

- That is our weakness, as I have said. We are 
running after illusions - the great chimera. We fancy 
we can make a chum of a man, a husband, and the 
first pretty face he sees, he runs after it; and we can 
only curse Heaven, and grow cattish. 

- We hate other women who get men to run after 
them . 

- Precisely! .. . While men like a man all the better 
if they see him running after a woman. 

- It would appear from what you say that we are 
narrow minded. 

- Our minds are broad enough... broader than the 
men’s when it is a question of freedom from prejudices 
and conventions. The fault lies in our narrow educa- 
tion. And the men force this education on us... the 
162 


poetess began to speak fiercely... They foster it and 
nourish it in every way that appeals to our vanity... 
This “Mother Love” idea, for example, is a creation 
of the men to keep us docile. 

- You don’t mean to deny that a mother loves her 
children? 

- Now you are getting heated purely out of preju- 
dice. You have never had a child... no more have I... 
but before we speak from observation of others, we will 
turn for a moment to ourselves... Which loved you 
most, your father or your mother? 

- Why, my father! But I think that was an ex- 
ception . 

- Not on your life! It is the rule. My mother hat- 
ed me. But no matter. I was not the favorite child of 
my father; but he did admire me, and he taught me 
independence. 

- ’Tissaid, fathers love their daughters and moth- 
ers, their sons. 

- A lie. Mothers love their sons because they look 
to them for support in their declining years. I don’t 
mean financial support purely. They want moral, relig- 
ious and affectionate support as well. My proof of this?. 
Witness how a mother fights the idea of her son’s mar- 
rying; and if he does take the bit in his teeth and 
marry against her will , how she hates and nags the 
wife, and then freezes on to the grandsons in the hope 
that they will carry out the program her son failed in. 
As for her daughters, the mother shifts them off on to 
the first man who comes along who will support them; 
163 


and little patience she has with their marrying for love. 
She even goes out into the highways to hunt for eligible 
matches and she sets her traps in wiliest fashion. 

- You think, then, that mother- love is selfish? 

- At bottom, at the root, it is purely that. Of 
course, a mother will risk her life to preserve her child 
in danger, but that is for her own future self-protec- 
tion. A man will sacrifice his life to save another 
man’s child, for that matter, and he won’t brag about 
it either, but this “Mother-Love” theory he trots out 
on every occasion and tricks it up with all the poetry 
and oratory he can muster. He knows that if he can 
persuade the mother that she is noble in staying home 
and cooking for her children, that incidentally she will 
be cooking for him, and making his bed, and he will 
be left undisturbed at his game of lord of the hen-roost 
to go out in the road when he likes and strut and crow 
with his neighbors. 

- Since you scorn men so, said Charlotte, getting 
up and following the Chief Steward along tbe cliff path 
where the wind of her indignation seemed threatening 
to hurl her over, I don’t see how you can give them 
credit for so much paternal love. Seems to me you are 
not altogether consistent. 

- My dear!... Mrs. Swan turned and stood oracu- 
larly... because 1 have a contempt for the injustices of 
men in order that they may keep women enslaved to 
them, does not deprive me, a woman, from being just 
to them, and giving them the credit that is their due. 
As for Father-love as contrasted with Mother-love, you 
164 


have only to use your eyes, and look about you. How 
often, do you read tragedy in a man’s face because his 
child has died, or one has gone wrong, as the world 
calls it, and, indeed, has not gone right from the point 
of view of its own individual welfare. A father loves 
his children for themselves. His affection is faithful 
through long absence, and he does not wish to monop- 
olize their lives. A mother, on the contrary, wants to 
sit on her children, and do nothing but interfere with 
them and boss them, and feed off of them. I am speak- 
ing now of general, not exceptional, instances... Yes, 
1 admit that I am a man-hater - damn them! - but I 
hate them for what they do, not for what they are. In 
many things, in most things, we women have to learn 
from them. But we must not accept the rules they 
have made for our enslavement. We must think out 
our own rules for ourselves. 

- Who is that shouting on the beach below? I de- 
clare!... it is the laughter of the Midshipman! 

The two women moved to a point on the cliff 
where they could command a long veiw of the beach. 
Sure enough two riders were approaching, but being fifty 
feet below they did not realize they were being observed. 
It was Beatrice Knox and Mr. Plummer, scampering 
around the point in the water, for the waves there 
came up to the cliff except at very low tide. The horses 
were as gay with the sport of the waves as their riders 
who had to hold up their feet. They waded sedately 
where it was deepest, but seemed to realize that the wave 
would recede. Round the point was a wide strip of 
1 ()5 


sand where they were usually permitted to make a dash 
for a half mile before they should turn in at the Duke 
Cottage and pause puffing in the sand and the sunshine. 

- Hello, hello, hello!... called Letitia from above, 
hut they did not hear her; the voice carrying out rath- 
er than downward... Besides, there was a swashing of 
the waves against the cliff. 

-Hello, hello, hello!... screamed Charlotte Gay- 
lord, waving her parasol excitedly above her head. She 
had a sudden wild feeling of delight at seeing the man 
she loved come riding towards her. 

But her cries were not heard any more than those 
of the Chief Steward, and the riders rounded the point 
of the projecting cliff. As the horses gained the strip 
of pounded sand beyond, upon which the crawling 
waves were also lapping, they broke into swift run of 
rapid hoof-beats, their backs lowering several inches so 
it seemed with their bellies lying close to the firm road. 
Away they went, riders and horses together, the man 
and the chestnut stallion well ahead but the little 
strawberry mustang pattering valiantly after, her short 
leaps running together, they were so rapid, as she scur- 
ried like an insect over the sand. 

- They didn’t hear us! ... cried Letitia, with voice 
still raised as when she was calling out to the distant 
riders. 

- If they did, they pretended not to, replied Char- 
lutte, speaking almost under her breath. 

She turned and walked up toward the toy castle 
with its absurd battlements trying to frovni dow n on 
!(>(.; 


the garden. The parterres of flowers were laid out in 
bad taste; there was such an evident attempt at being 
Gesman about everything. 

And Charlotte speculated on the fate of the little 
school teacher who had married this old bachelor and 
gone to Europe... Did she, possibly, love another than 
her husband? And if she did not, even then, would 
she be happy? Was it not better to be an old maid, 
teaching school? 

When the two had returned to the villa, and Char- 
lotte had locked her room door and thrown herself on 
the bed, she gave way to the weeping that was within 
her. Like a school-girl, she had a good cry, and when 
it was over she tried to speculate on the reason : 

Suppose they had heard the hailing, what more 
could they have done than wave their hands and ride 
on? The cliff at that point was unscalable; if it were, 
there was no trail for the horses. Probably they had 
an appointment at “The Yacht” for tea. Why should 
they not be riding out together? 

But the bitterness of calling and not being answer- 
ed!... and immediately on the delight of seeing their 
approach! Her jealousy was writhing like a serpent; 
it could kill something; it had poison in its fangs; 
which would it strike first at... the man? or the wo- 
man? She hated both. She hated all the world... No, 
it was really herself she hated; and in her passion she 
seized her own arm with her teeth and bit till there 
was a red stain of her fierceness. She had to wear a 
long-sleeved frock to dinner that evening to hide it. 
lf>7 


But the fire of it was burning in her eyes. 


After dinner, she singled out Cecily Blount and propos- 
ed they should take a stroll in the garden. Usually she 
chose Beatrice for a companion, or Letitia or Miss Max- 
well remained w r ith her. 

Cecily was lonely, and glad to have someone to talk 
with. She had been neglected of late by the others. 

- Let us go down to the lower terrace. It is free 
there, and the walks are longer and less broken, sug- 
gested Charlotte. 

- Let’s go down into the meadows, agreed Cecily.. 
I love to lie and tumble in the grass. 

They stopped at the lonely table of the poetess. 
The bird had for some time now held sway there alone. 
Charlotte repeated the story as the Midshipman had 
told it her. The Midshipman would creep into her 
thoughts. Cecily had a good laugh at the expense of 
‘dear Letitia’. She rolled on her back in the grass, 
gazed at the sunset-colored clouds overhead and re- 
gardless of silk dress and laces plucked flower-stems 
w r ith her white teeth. 

- She is a good soul though we do laugh at her, 
said Charlotte, and I am sorry for her, for she has had 
an unhappy life. 

- Which, of course, has been much her own fault, 
replied Cecily. She has been with her husband, much 
as she has been with her poetry-writing, enthusiastic 
168 


in the beginning of everything, then growing dissatis- 
fied after the first line, and finding fault and blaming 
everyone but herself and her own insatiable and un- 
happy desire. My sympathies are with poor Mr. Swan. 
From all I can learn, even from her, he has been a 
long-suffering and kind-hearted partner. If he’d only 
been brute enough to beat her, she would probably be 
living happily with him now instead of running about 
at large cursing men, whom she really likes better than 
any of us. 

- Men don’t like her, said Charlotte thoughtfully. 

- Of course they don’t! and she resents it and 
then makes herself horrid. 

- It is not a woman’s fault if the men don’t like 

her. 

- It isn’t and it is. Take my own case for example. 
Men don’t naturally like me. I accept the handicap 
and enter the race with women they do like and I mean 
to win out in the end. 

- You mean? 

- I mean I take up dancing, not because I think it 
is the highest art in the world as some dancers claim, I 
don’t think it is, in fact. I look upon it as one of the 
lower arts instead. But I know it makes me beautiful. 
It develops my body in graceful movements and curves. 
I study to get beautiful effects. You know I have not a 
beautiful figure naturally, you know I have not a beau- 
tiful face. I would give my soul to have hair as lovely 
as Tessie Duke. And she neglects it, exposes it to sun 
and wind and calls herself sorrel-top. But I study my 
lb 9 


face and do my hair to make it seem beautiful. I do it 
because I want to attract men, I’m not like Miss Cody 
who gets herself up for women though I do suspect she 
lies about that even to herself and will come out strong 
for a man someday when she sees one. 

What is the use of being ashamed of our natures? 
We are created for men aren’t we? and men’s pleasure? 
It is as natural for a woman to crave a man as it is for 
an animal to crave a mate. We are animals aren’t we? 
Why not admit it? For my part, I scorn a woman as 
sickly and abnormal if she does not desire a man’s love 
and protection. 

- Letitia even admits a woman should marry. But 
she advises her to marry for position and a home. 

- Marriage I am not talking about, replied Cecily. 
I don’t say it is not a good thing in its way. I don’t 
think however it would be advisable for her and I am 
sure it wouldn’t be for me for the present. When I am 
older, when I am tired of the game of man-trapping, - 
here she stopped to laugh deliciously at her phrase - 
then, I shall doubtless take Letitia's advice, unless I 
have position as she terms it already, and money which 
is what she means, to support me in it. 

- You don’t think, then, it would be wicked to 
marry without love? 

- Love... love has gone out of fashion. Leave that 
to the past where it belongs. Now, even the poets write 
of passion. Love is out of date and doesn’t enter. 

- Surely you think we are capable of loving still, 
don’t you? 

170 


- If we think we love, in nine cases out of ten, it 
is merely the passion of jealousy at bottom. If we marry 
a man for love, we marry him to torment him. Look 
at the marriages around you and admit I judge them 
rightly. A woman has a passion for a man, yes, a pas- 
sion that would kill him, torture him, eat him. What 
ordinarily passes for love in women’s minds is nearer 
hate. I am sick of all their hypocrisies of sacrifice. 

- You and Letitia are a good team of woman-ha- 
ters. She has been giving me a discourse on mother- 
love this very afternoon. 

- My dear, all normal women hate women. They 
only chat together in order to more successfully plan 
attacks on the men. Where there is an even balance in 
numbers of the sexes they often get up some very credit- 
able friendships. Or if the women are left entirely alone 
they make the best of a famine though their hunger is 
frightful. But put two or three men in a group of twice 
or three times as many women and then woman’s 
friendship for woman is a joke. 

- I thought it was the nature of the males to fight 
for the females among animals. And, you know, you 
said we are animals. 

- Your logic may be better than mine, laughed Ce- 
cily, but I am still nearer the fact. 

Charlotte suddenly moved behind the boulder. 
Somebody was coming up the road. 

Cecily sat up round-eyed. 

- It’s Mr. Plummer! He’s coming early. Let’s go 
and meet him. 


- I want to be alone, I have an engagement, fal- 
tered Charlotte, but it was doubtful if Cecily even heard 
her. She had boldly gone forward to meet the artist, 
calling out, Hello! as she advanced. 

Charlotte Gaylord shrarik back behind the boulder 
and blushed in shame. Why had she chosen the lower 
terrace? Then she waited, thinking they might come 
down to seek her; she even hoped... no: she did not 
hope... she could not bear it. But the minutes passed. 
..Cecily Blount had evidently gone into the studio, or 
down the hill for a walk. They did not call her. Prob- 
ably Joe did not even know she was there. If he did - 
Charlotte’s eyes were now burning... She rose, and 
walked up the hill quite proudly. She would show him 
that she preferred to walk alone. 


But Pride is. a restless bed-fellow, and all that night 
she could not sleep. The next morning she did not 
come down for breakfast. When she called down the 
speaking-tube for her coffee, it was the Midshipman 
who appeared with it at the door. 

- I asked Blanche if I might bring it... Beatrice 
apologized... You dont mind, do you? May 1 sit a lit- 
tle while? Then she arranged the tray neatly on the 
lamp-stand and plumped down on the edge of the bed 
like a shaft of sunshine. 

Charlotte knew that she was looking miserable 
with swolen eye-lids... She had tried to remove the 
172 


traces of her restlessness in order to meet the maid, but 
the Midshipman did not seem to notice, looking much 
of the time out the window that was open to the soft 
winds of the morning. 

- Such a lively ride as I had yesterday afternoon., 
she began to chatter... I wish you had been with us, 1 
do, really. Mr. Plummer asked me to accompany him 
to Santa Barbara, and we came home along the miles 
of the beach. It is wonderful to have someone riding 
ahead, and to watch the horse’s tracks fill with water, 
and then suddenly disappear in the rebounding sand. 
I had hard work to keep up with my mustang. 

- I saw you from the cliff, said Charlotte drily... 
Letitia and I were exploring the Baruch garden. 

- So she told me just now at the breakfast table. 
The sea makes such a roar!... We did not hear you 
call. We couldn’t even hear each other sometimes 
when we shouted. 

- You seemed to be enjoying yourself all the same. 

- Oh, the exhilaration is something wonderful 
along the beach ! The waves seem always coming in 
to catch you. The horses get the spirit of it, too. We 
fairly flew... and the spray beating in our faces! I 
thought of my brother in the navy. Have you ever 
sailed in a yacht? We might make up a party; Mr. 
Quinn is a great sailor, and has a cat-boat. 

- I think a yacht would bore me to death. I can’t 
imagine being cooped up wdth some people I couldn’t 
get away from. I should become desperate and plunge 
into the sea. 


- It would be a diversion, and Mr. Plummer could 
rescue you. Tess says he is a magnificent swimmer. 

- I suppose Mrs. Duke and he arrange bathing 
parties. 

- Do you really think you are fair to Mrs. Duke? 
She is like a mother to me, and we have such fun at 
her cottage. 

- I neither care to be fair nor unfair. She is not 
even antipathetic to me, I do not consider her. 

- Oh, well, I suppose each one must choose her 
own friends. You probably wouldn’t like John, and I 
adore him. 

- And how does he take your going riding with 
Mr. Plummer? 

- Oh, John is a dear. He knows Mr. Plummer is 
not for the likes of me. John and I are of the younger 
generation. 

- Mr. Plummer is not so old.., defended Charlotte. 
I don’t see how you can call thirty four old. 

- Well, the Misogynist is only thirty six, and Mrs. 
Duke says he is like her grandmother. 

- Mrs. Duke is forty five if she is a day. 

- No: just turned forty 1... corrected the Midship- 
man. She was married at eighteen. Tessie was born 
within a year, and she was tw r enty one her last birth- 
day. 

- Women don’t marry at eighteen. I’ve seen Mr. 
Duke: he’s antediluvian. 

- Oh well, a woman is only as young as she looks. 

- Or as young as she acts. That would suit Mrs. 


174 


Duke better, I think. But, as I said, her age does not 
interest me in any way. 

- Well, for my part, I think they’re lots of fun, 
and you make mistake by not going there more often. 
Up here, you have only old maids, and they’ll get on 
your nerves pretty soon; they’ll make you morbid. 

- Tell Marion Cody that she is an old maid. 

- She calls herself a bachelor maid, and it’s under- 
stood, a man isn’t a bachelor till he’s old. 

- It’s too bad we shelved Mrs. Duke. She would 
have lowered the average years of the Morganatic. 

- At least, Tessie would have helped, laughed Be- 
atrice. Did you know she and Ben have renewed their 
engagement? 

- I didn’t know it had been broken, droned Miss 
Gaylord. 

- It wasn’t broken; but the time had run out. 
Now they have had it extended. They’re pledged to be 
engaged for a year. 

- How silly ! 

- I think it’s wise. Ben is still very youthful, and 
a year’s contract may sober him somewhat. He needs 
responsibility to steady him. But I think it’s very 
generous of Tessie to grant a year. She might miss a 
good chance by being promised. Twenty two is a crit- 
ical time of life for a girl. 

- Yes, she’s liable to be twenty six, like us old 
maids, and then her case is absolutely hopeless. 

- Well, I am twenty four, and I feel my years. I 
begin to think it will be John or nothing. 

1 75 


- You might grow up to Mr. Plummer, in time... 
The sarcasm in Charlotte’s voice was ungovernable. 

- I believe you’re mad because we ran away and 
left you in the canyon. Do you know what I really in- 
tended doing that day? I meant to leave you alone so’s 
he’d propose. I know he was dying to, and is yet for 
that matter. Why do you always hedge him away? He 
told me you’d changed dreadfully since he knew you 
in Chicago. He thinks you’re going to marry someone 
else. 1 teased him to tell me who it was but he wouldn’t. 
I suppose it’s some rich man in Chicago. 

- Did he tell you he was dying to propose to me? 

- Why, no: he couldn’t do that exactly, could he? 
But I can see he looks sad when your name is men- 
tioned. Naturally I keep mentioning it to egg him on 
and I assure you he is quite reckless afterwards when 
we change the subject. 

- He seemed so when he dashed after you up the 
canyon . 

- Oh, he was. His rashness was quite overwhelm- 
ing! Do you know - pursed the Midshipman slyly - 
when he’s exasperated he’s a devilish flirt. 

- Did he flirt with you? Charlotte was almost ux- 
oriously savage. 

- Well, not to say flirt. I’m too young. He says 
I haven’t a mature idea in my curly noddle. 

- He is inclined to be puerile at times. 

- Yes, that’s it, puerile, that’s the word. John is 
quite a grown man beside him. 

- Are you engaged to John Battell? 

1. 7 fl 


- Oh, dear no: he’s engaged to another girl. Of 
course, he would like to break it, but he can’t honor- 
ably. It’s the girl’s place to break the engagement, 
don’t you think? 

- Surely, she has only to find out and she will do 
so! 

- About me you mean? You never can tell. She 
loves him faithfully and thinks no doubt he will come 
back. 

- As no doubt he will when you throw' him over. 
Girls are such pitiful creatures. 

- I don’t see why a girl is pitiful because she holds 
onto a good boy like John... retorted the Midshipman 
growing indignant. You don’t realize what a manly 
soul he is. He’s w r orth a dozen Joe Plummers for con- 
stancy. 

- I didn’t know you called him Joe, Charlotte 
scorned. 

- I don’t except when I’m talking to you. You call 
him that. He told me so himself and he always speaks 
of you as Charlotte or Lottie. 

- He knows I detest Lottie. I have forbidden it. 
I never answer him when he calls me that. He knows it. 

- Well, I don’t see any harm in the name. I think 
it’s pretty. At least, as pretty as Trixie or Trix. Mr. 
Plummer calls me Trix, and I don’t hate it. I do 
think Bee is an ugly name. 

- I suppose he calls Mrs. Duke, Irene? 

- If you want to know, you’ll have to ask her... 
pouted Beatrice. But she does call him ‘Plum’ before 
177 


everybody. 

- Another proof of her vulgarity, said Charlotte... 
Thank you for bringing me the coffee. 


Beatrice carried her grievance to Mrs. Duke... 

- Charlotte is getting so cranky I can’t stand her, 
she exclaimed... and she mopes about the house and 
looks so martyred that it will drive some of us to sui- 
cide out of proxy. 

- Mrs. Duke heaved as deep a sigh as her nature 
was capable of... 

- Ah, my dear, you have never suffered the pangs 
of jealousy ! . . . that is plaim But Miss Gaylord is a 
fool to let people see it. I’d eat my heart out before 
I’d let a man see I was pining for him. 

- But why doesn’t Mr. Plummer go and make it 
up with her? I’m sure he thinks a lot of her; he says 
so. 

- A man can’t make love to a perambulating foun- 
tain. It’s enough to have a funeral after the wedding. 
If you want a man, laugh at him, torment him, be in- 
different, do anything but weep and look reproachful. 

- Charlotte is too fine to go after a man in that 
way. She wants him to come to her, and accept her 
as she is. 

- Too proud., she may be, smiled Mrs. Duke, but 
too fine to go after a man... no woman is ever that, if 
she loves. But some of us use our judgment about 
178 


such things. 

- You say she is jealous, but I don’t see whom she 
is jealous of. Mr. Plummer pays everybody attention. 

- Well, isn’t that enough? She wants him to pay 
attention only to her. There is one she might be jeal- 
ous of, however, if she was not too stupid. 

- Who is that? asked the Midshipman, consciously 
blushing. 

- Sylvia Howard, of course. Don’t you see how 
his eyes steady when he looks at her? That’s the way 
to tell a man’s feelings. 

- I never see them together. 

- Another good sign with older people. Years 
make us play the game more warily, my daughter. 

- I think Charlotte is most jealous of you. 

- That proves what a stupid observer she is. How 
such people can set up to be portrait painters, I can’t 
imagine. A portrait painter must see beneath the skin. 

- She thinks you are too familiar with him. 

- Which I wouldn’t be if I were fond of him of 
course. 

- But you do like him, don’t you, Mrs. Duke? 

- He’s a playful sort, But there isn’t much in 
him that makes for endurance and daily wear. He’s 
all right for a season’s flirtation. 

- Mr. Morgan and Mr. Quinn seem to like him. 

- He’s a man’s man; and that is the best I can say 
of him. But he’s not the man for a woman that either 
of the others are you mention. 

- Why, on the hill, w 7 e always speak of Mr. Quinn 


179 


as the Misogynist ! 

- A name Captain Marion Cody invented ; and it 
sounds very clever; but, like all of her epithets, it’s a 
misnomer. There’s another lady mistaken in her pro- 
fession. She calls herself a novelist, an observer of hu- 
man nature, and, like all people who think they are 
good at it, she is only a blind egotist, not capable even 
of observing her own motives. 

- I don’t think she’d like the idea of Mr. Plum- 
mer’s being interested in Sylvia. 

- She’d jump up and down and kick and scream, 
all together. Well, we’re out for some exciting times 
this winter. 

- Do you think Sylvia is interested in him? 

- Dear child, every woman is interested in a man: 
especially in such a “he man” as Joe Plummer. 

- You mean, he likes women very much? 

- I mean he knows women, and depends on them 
for his pleasure. He doesn't like them as sincerely as 
Mr. Quinn does, or Mr. Morgan. At least, he isn’t 
capable of liking one of them as long as they are. No, 
nor women collectively either. 

- Perhaps that’s the reason they like him. 

- No doubt it works that way too. And then, he 
has to have them. They are as necessarj T to him as 
food. 

- If they are necessary to him, he must like them. 

- We love luxuries, my dear girl, not necessities. 
But Joe Plummer is a good sort, and I’m not going to 
say anything more against him or I’ll suspect myself 
180 


of being in love with him like the rest. 


-Sylvia Howard, you are positively moping!... 
complained the novelist, laying down her pen. 

- Cody, dear, I was thinking of Charlotte Gaylord. 
I have grown very fond of that girl, really. 

- It’s your compassion, Matey darling. It’s your 
sympathetic nature. You would grow fond of the Man 
if he were in trouble. 

- How do you know but what he is?... said Sylvia 
laughing somewhat rosily... I’m sure I would be in 
trouble if I had a swain pining so for me. 

- He feeds on it, replied the other.,. Can’t you 
see it? He’s one of those that thrives on the starvation 
he causes. He’s a Capitalist of Love - Say, that’s not 
a bad phrase for my novel ! 

- I wish he’d feed on somebody else’s starvation 
than Charlotte Gaylord’s. She’s altogether too fine a 
nature to be sacrificed. 

- My dear, it is the fine natures that make the sac- 
rifice worth while. Martyrs must be languishing, or 
they aren’t worth the candle. 

- Really, Cody, your metaphors are truly ecclesias- 
tic!... but you’re getting remote from the maritime, 
don’t you think? 

-Then, to quote the classic from our gallant old 
Commodore - You can’t make an omelette without 
breaking eggs. 

181 


- But is his omelette worth the eggs? He might 
use stale ones. 

- Anybody’s omelette is worth the best eggs he 
can procure. I mean to go in for egg-breaking, myself, 
someday. Our little Midshipman is putting us both to 
shame. 

- You know, I think she’s actually cracking the 
shell of the Misogynist? He spoke of her quite feelingly 
yesterday. 

- The Misogynist finds safety in numbers. That 
doesn’t quite carry out the egg-metaphor, does it? 

- Put the eggs in a basket, and you are all right ; 
though it does take us far from the seabord. 

- The Chief Steward would find the trope suitable. 
But has Charlotte Gaylord been giving you confidences 
lately? 

- I was in her room last night. It is very depress- 
ing. She isn’t capable of thinking of anybody but that 
man. Why couldn’t he have remained in Algeria? 

- Or she have remained in Chicago? She knew he 
had a studio here. 

- With her, it was only a desire to sentmentalize 
under the rose-tree after the flowers had flown away to 
other gardens. 

- Come, come, Matey, you must keep your fig- 
ures straight. 

- I had to change this one to fit the situation. You 
can’t say that Mr. Plummer was plucked, nor yet 
withered with the winter of old age. 

- You might have said that the entire rose-tree 


182 


was transplanted, and Miss Gaylord came to tread on 
the sweetened soil that remained behind. 

- Thank you, Cody, you can be literary, though 
you can’t be genuine. But I hope you’ll never be mis- 
prized like Charlotte. 

- If I am, darling, I’ll show you ‘a woman scorn- 
ed’ in earnest. I’ll tear up the whole garden and 
throw it into the sea. 

- Do you know, I think it is this honey-moon 
landscape that is turning us into lunatics, and that 
Man is merely the humble medium through which it 
works. 

- Don’t shove off any lunacies on me. I am as sane 
as any sailor before the mast. But what did the Chief 
Engineer particularly confide? 

- Oh, nothing in words. It was all in silence. 
But the tears actually flowed down her sad cheeks. 

- And I doubt not, the pearls coursed down your 
cheery ones in sympathy. I will not have my Matey 
getting morbid. 

- I confess to a few solitaires at times. But hers 
were cluster settings and braided garlands. It is pitiful 
when one woman ceases to conceal from another. 

- Yes, we hate a woman till we get her to crying, 
and then we turn in and love her; that’s human. Note 
that ‘turn in’ a nautical phrase. 

- So, we opened our dead lights and shipped wa- 
ter till the decks had to be swabbed with our halyards. 

- And you grappled your cross-trees and boarded. 
Charlotte isn’t one of the kissing kind, I fancy. 

183 


- She’s the kind that wants a man to do that. She 
is the ultra-feminine one of our officers. 

- Did she ask for advice? Did you give it? But, 
pshaw! You never give advice. 

- No: we just sat and held hands. But I think it 
comforted her, Cody, that I understood. 

- Of course, it did, you silly little goosie. Do they 
have geese anywhere on board of a ship? 

- I have heard of the sailors feathering their oars. 
No doubt a goose would come handy. 

- For that, they pluck Mother Carey’s chickens. 
But I think they use a goose wing for a sail. 

- And goose flesh creeps up and down their backs, 
when they tell stories of haunted ships. 

- We will now take our bearings, Matey, and set 
the helm. We’re running before the wind in a way 
that’s dangerous. 

- Can you think of any advice to give her? I al- 
ways come to m3 T Captain for advice. 

- Right, Matey, right and I always give it. Tell her 
to steer dead for Chicago. 

- She has a notion she wants to punish him some- 
way. She wants to put a knife in his back. 

- His only vulnerable spot is his vanity. When he 
sees he is deserted, it will bleed him. 

- But he has all of us left to stanch his wounds. 

- Now, Matey, I must beg you to leave me out. 
Yes, also you can leave out yourself. Then, all he has 
left is our late passenger, who has used up all her lint 
on other defectives; and the purser fumbles all the ban- 
184 


dages, and the Chief Steward pours on vitriol and salt. 

- The Midshipman is neat and handy with first 

aid. 

- The Midshipman has greener wounds to handle. 
No: the engineer’s stroke is to open the throttle and 
set sail for Chicago before the wind. I think I’ll issue 
the order to her now. 

- You’d better lie low, Cody, pleaded Sylvia. 

But Captain Cody seized her speaking trumpet and 
went forward. 


The Engineer received her with some formality, and 
the speaking trumpet was tucked away in the Captain’s 
pocket. Still, Marion Cody was not one to be balked in 
a project and she felt she was acting from a desire to be 
of service. 

- You seem so unhappy here, she began after some 
generalities. Sylvia, in fact, has been telling me you are. 

- I suppose nobody is very happy so far as that 
goes, said Charlotte slightly bristling, but we only con- 
fess the fact in moments of weakness. 

- I’m sure I wish you would come over to our hut 
oftener. We might all cheer each other up a bit by 
sharing our misery. 

- I have always lived very much alone, replied 
Charlotte somewhat mollified by this kindness. I imag- 
ine I would get irritated by even so sweet a character as 
lHo 


Sylvia, if 1 had her so much with me as you have. 

- Oh I get irritated and act like a beast. But Syl- 
via overlooks it like an angel. 

- She has a sweet nature, and I have become very 
fond of her. It’s too bad she is coming under the charm 
of Mr. Plummer, he has a baleful influence on every- 
body. I sometimes almost believe in the evil eye. 

- What do you mean? Mr. Plummer... Sylvia.. 1 
Captain Cody was aghast. 

Now, the Engineer hardly knew if she meant any- 
thing; the words had slipped from her lips quite un- 
premeditated. She only knew that there was an enemy 
in her camp, and, like a good fighter, she had assum- 
ed the offensive. She was aware that an announcement 
of this nature, would throw the intruder on the defen- 
sive for her friend, and accordingly she had drawn the 
first weapon within reach. 

- I don’t mean, of course, that she is in love with 
the Man. Nobody can really be in love with him. He is 
too selffsh. Too coarse, I almost said. But it is plain 
that Sylvia has found him interesting. His very self- 
ishness and coarseness attracts. 

- But Sylvia is just getting over an affair of the 
heart. It is impossible that she could be getting inter- 
ested, as you saj r . 

- I believe the connoisseurs say that convalescence 
is the most dangerous period for new contagion. 

- Oh, bosh! Sylvia never thinks of him. 

No? I find she is always talking of him. Perhaps 
she feels instinctively you are hostile to such an inter- 
186 


est and never speaks of him to you. 

- Oh, fiddle! She speaks of him to you because 
she thinks you are interested and she likes you. 

- I have known Mr. Plummer so long that I could 
hardly be expected to be interested in the way you 
mean. There was a boy and girl intimacy between us, 
two years ago, but his is a nature that wearies of a 
game in two months. Also it wearies his partner. The 
game is too simple with him. One finds one’s self in a 
very small circle. 

- I don’t imagine there is much subtlety about 
him. He’s too damned handsome to have brains, that’s 
a fact. 

- Of course, some women can overlook the absence 
of brains. 

- Not Sylvia. Oh, it can’t be true what you say. 
I’m positive there’s nothing in it, absolutely. 

- Oh, I didn’t mean to imply anything vital. If he 
was capable of inspiring a vital passion... it would be 
different. 

- Well, I am surprised to hear all this from you. I 
thought you really... 

- I may, of course, be wrong about Sylvia, the En- 
gineer interrupted. I know Mr. Plummer is attracted 
to her. It was for that that I wanted to give her a 
word of warning. 

- I thought he was occupied with Cecily Blount. 

- He has his tricks: and one is employing decoys. 
Miss Blount is too eager, too forward. There is man 
enough in Joe Plummer to want to play the part of the 
187 


' hunter. sj 

- And Cecily Blount is a Diana with a big club, 
that’s a fact. 

- Of course, you understand that I don’t mean to 
imply that dear Sylvia is in anyway conscious, either 
of his allurements, or of her susceptibility to them. I 
trust you for not mentioning this to her. 

- You may. To hint it would set her on to the 
game. Sylvia is a contrary little person, though you 
wouldn’t suspect it, would you? 

- I imagine it is a weakness common to us all. 

- I am cantrary, but I show it. Sylvia doesn’t 
show it, but she is. 

Charlotte had no observation to offer and Marion 
began pacing the floor restlessly. She had been turned 
from the original purpose of her visit, and all her 
thoughts were now centered on her chum. If it was 
true that Sylvia was becoming interested in this de- 
testable man, would it not be better to keep Charlotte 
on the ground? Sylvia was too noble a creature to in- 
terfere and she had the conviction that Charlotte Gay- 
lord was involved in an irrevocable passion. If Char- 
lotte should go to Chicago, then it was natural that Syl- 
via would feel more free. Svlvia was a little sentimen- 
tal... that was her weakness, and Mr. Plummer was no 
suitable match for her. The Captain intended she 
should marry some-day, but she meant to have a hand 
in the selection of a husband. Mr. Morgan, now, would 
he in every way more suitable. He had money and a 
literary appreciation, and Sylvia was just suited to 
INS 


become an old man’s darling. Neither was Mr. Morgan 
so old. If this artist could be but shipped to Chicago, 
instead. Or, maybe Charlotte Gaylord really cared for 
him... She turned on her suddenly with a question: 

* Are you quite sure, Charlotte, - I hope you’ll 
let me call you Charlotte... Sylvia does, and I would 
like you to call me Marion, - Are you quite sure that 
if Mr. Plummer should come around... I understand 
he is hopelessly in love with you... 

- You mean that I might marry him?... queried 
Charlotte innocently, seeing that Miss Cody made pause. 

- Why not? You are both artists; and I understand 
he makes a very reasonable living with his portraits. 

- For that matter, I make a living myself. I should 
hardly marry any man for a living. 

- Of course I was taking it for granted that you 
might have something of the old feeling of independ- 
ence left. You would make him an ideal wife... a wo- 
man ought to understand her husband. 

- And have nothing left for hero-worship?... ques- 
tioned Charlotte. 

- Don’t you think it’s safer to have the idols 
smashed? I mean safer for matrimony, in general? 

- I don’t see anything very safe in matrimony, 
any way you look at it, replied Charlotte. And it would 
be pleasanter to have a little romance in the undertak- 
ing, don’t you think? Otherwise, it would be altogeth- 
er too sordid. 

- Viewed from any point, it’s a fierce proposition. 
For my own part, I mean to take the conjugal vows in 
189 


the coldest blood. When I marry a man, I shall do it 
to manage him. And to manage a man, you’ve got to 
understand him. Heigh-ho! We women don’t have a 
fair chance with the men. 

- Why not do without them altogether? Is it so 
disgraceful to live an old maid? 

- You have no position in society. Look at our 
two passengers for example. No; the Lord spare me 
from the fate of an old maid! Besides, a woman needs 
children... it’s her nature. 

- I can’t think of Joe Plummer in the guise of a 
pater familias. He would have a bad influence on his 
sons. 

- Oh, all sons go to the dogs. I mean to the wom- 
en. It’s as well to go early as late. I mean to bring up 
ray sons to be regular rakes. It saves them from all 
sorts of calamities. 

- Well, I can’t think of having any sons at all. A 
daughter, now, I think I could handle a daughter. 
Even Mrs. Duke seems to do that not so badly, 

- If she had a son she’d flirt with him at his thir- 
teenth year. I’d like to see him tread on her heart. 

The Chief Engineer laughed, but not maliciously, 
she could afford to be generous, for things were going 
well with her. 

- Beatrice Knox should be here to stand up for 
Mrs. Duke, she said merely. The Midshipman is a 
daughty little champion. 

- She’s a dear all the same, and 1 like to see her 
stand up for her chums. . I wish I had a John to fol- 
1 90 


low me like a dog. 

- There are a good many things she could teach us, 
I imagine. The trouble is we’re too old to learn new 
tricks. 

- Now, you’re making us the dog instead of John. 
Well, women are dogs; at least they lead a dog’s life. 
But I won’t go till you promise to call me Marion. 

- I thought you liked Captain Cody better. 

- That is all right for general usage; but you and 
I are to be friends, and... protect Sylvia. 

- All right, Marion, laughed Charlotte, giving her 
hand generously. 

- Captain Cody returned to her hut with many 
gloomy forebodings. She did not realize that she had 
been defeated, been out-generaled , and by one that she 
still regarded as her inferior. 

Perhaps that is the greatest victory a general can 
have; to leave his victim unrecognizing he has been 
conquered. At all events, the Chief Engineer was sat- 
isfied for the moment. Time would tell if she had the 
character to endure success. 


There had been another party at Mrs. Duke’s cottage, 
but Charlotte had pleaded ‘indisposition’ the last mo- 
ment, and remained alone in the villa. As a matter of 
truth, she was not well, she was heartsick with disap- 
pointment and envy. Why should this brazen woman, 
she thought, who had no money nor social position, 
DM 


who had been practically sent away from the place, 
have all the men and merriment and adulation, while 
she, who had been the sponsor for the whole company, 
should be regarded as little more than an upper serv- 
ant? Everyone was more intimate with Joe than she 
was, even Mrs. Swan was beginning to speak of him 
with more familiar forbearance, and she, Charlotte, 
the only one who loved him, the only one who was ca- 
pable of appreciating his artistic aims and his strug- 
gles, she, who had been his intimate chum and com- 
panion for three years, should find herself relegated to 
the background .. and that, too, when she was making 
such supreme sacrifice for him and turning from a good 
man's hand and fortune; the thing was unthinkable, 
unbearable. Its bitterness was cankering her tortured 
heart. That she, herself was to blame for this situation 
did not, in any way, give her solace or satisfaction. As 
she went over the details of the winter season, she could 
not, at any particular point, lay the blame on Joe or 
his conduct. He had always been thoughtfully polite 
toward her, where in former years he had often been 
thoughtless and rude. Also he had been sympathetic, 
even tender; but she didn’t crave either sympathy or 
tenderness from him now; she wanted even domineer- 
ing brutality. Yes, she admitted it to herself in all her 
pride of independence, she wanted to have this man 
flaunt his ownership of her in the faces of all these wo- 
men. She wanted to walk proudly as his captive. Joe 
used to have that idea of matrimony... and even of all 
relationships with women”. He wanted to be the master 
11)2 


toward the slave, and now that she was longing to ent- 
er servitude, he had taken on some of her old theories 
of feminine independence and was treating all these 
females as his equals. This irony of table-turning had 
impregnated her soul... she hardly knew where she 
was or what she was doing. She never knew the rea- 
son for her actions and she was becoming regardless of 
all consequences that might ensue. A famished jeal- 
ousy was feeding at her vitals. It was gorging itself 
with bile of her spleen... but as the monster grew and 
swelled like a loathsome reptile, there seemed ever fresh 
food for its nourishment. 

Sometimes she reasoned that Joe’s conduct was but 
a trick to win her over. No: she replied, he had never 
been so cunning. Then her vanity came in for a claim 
that she had converted him. He acknowledged, now, 
woman’s emancipation from masculine rule, and recog- 
nized them as intellectual equals and companions. But 
this theory gave her little comfort as it would have 
done even if it had been plausible, which it was not. 
Joe had no capacity for readjustment in his nature. He 
moved along on the prejudices of his youth. He would 
remain a conservative till his death, and secretly scorn 
the pretensions of all women. 

As the hours of the lovely evening advanced, she 
found her thoughts all dwelling with the revellers. It 
was an informal costume ball, out on the porch, a few 
men had been invited from the club to furnish part- 
n3rs. There would be strolling on the beach at low 
tide, the guests had all been warned to bring galoshes. 
11)8 


The moon would be rising at midnight over the sea, 
and a late supper and various “high-jinks” had been 
planned. And, with which one would Joe be dancing? 
with which one strolling?.. He would hardly dare to 
keep up his flirtation with the Midshipman in this 
more formal function among strangers. Charlotte im- 
agined all the women dancing with him. She had seen 
and even aided with some of the costumes. Sylvia was 
a wood- nymph, very beautiful; Marion was magnifi- 
cent in Elizabethan court costume, with Letitia and the 
Midshipman as her pages. Cecily was a Medusa, very 
effective and very nude, but her costume was ingenious 
and in no way immodest. The Doctor had made an 
admirable Portia. Why had she not gone with them 
and improvised a costume? She could be as beautiful 
as any, more beautiful if she chose; she stood long gaz- 
ing wistfully into her mirror. 

She went to her trunk and took out some yards of 
white China-silk; with one or two cuts from that she 
could make a costume. It w^ould not waste it. She 
could cut the lengths economically. Feverishly she 
sought her needle and her scissors. 

In two hours time it was finished; she was stand- 
ing before the glass in a rapture of excitement and suc- 
cess. She had made an oriental effect with a strait gown 
and a girdle of heavy beads. The difficult thing had 
been the head-dress. She had taken a yard of the silk 
and bound it with a runlet of gold beads, allowing the 
white draperies to fall at the back in simple folds and 
half concealing even her ears and her shoulders. Then, 
194 


her black hair had been drawn forward in hanging 
braids that were heavy with interbraided ribbons and 
strings of beads. Her dark eyes shone like lamps in 
this setting. She was the spirit of melancholy. It was 
wonderful. Fortunately, she had some strings of amber 
for her armlets, and yes, she would wear a black scarf 
in the beginning. White, black and gold! It rung like 
music, and she could toss aside the black scarf when 
she danced... or perhaps she should leave it hanging 
simply. It heightened the effect of her white arms! 

Well satisfied, she turned from the mirror with a 
sigh. None of them was so tragically beautiful. She 
looked at the clock. Half past eleven. She could arrive 
perhaps for one dance... with Joe. 

It was a half-hour’s walk to the cottage. With ten- 
nis shoes she managed very well. She had gold paper 
points to cover them with when she arrived. She had 
arranged pins to hold them in their places. 

Almost she was happy as she sped down the drive- 
way, through the star-lit eucalyptus grove, in the si- 
lence, and, later on, in the open flower-scented twi- 
light. The rising moon was tinging the sky over the 
sea. There w r as some unnaccountable hint of dawn in 
the milky way. 

Along the dusty, sandy road that led down to the 
sea, her spirits became more irritated and troubled. It 
had been a foolish undertaking, after all, to attempt 
this long way in so fragile a costume. Several times her 
scarf caught on a way-side bramble and the sand silted 
into her shoes and hurt her feet, and she had to sit 


down often to remove and empty them. Once, in ris- 
ing impatiently, she tore her skirt. The silk did not 
yield but the thread had broken, and a long rip in the 
seam threatened further disaster. When she came with- 
in hearing distance of the cottage, she stopped to listen. 
Then she realized that she was crying softly. Her eyes 
might be swollen or red. If she should go in without a 
preliminary glance in a mirror... it would not do... she 
might look like a fright, 

The mechanical piano-player was droning out a 
waltz, but there was little sound of feet or swish of 
dancers. Probably the guests were weary. She could 
dance with Joe. He was never tired at the end, though 
at the beginning of a ball he had no energy or fervor. 
She would steal up to a window, the shutters were 
closed of one; she could peer through between the slats 
and they w’ould not see her. At t he end of the house 
there was no piazza. It was deep shaded by luxuriant 
pepper trees. But the window was too high. She must 
find something to stand on. It seemed there were no 
people on the veranda, probably they had gone out on 
the beach to see the moon-rise. Some were still dancing 
however. Perhaps Joe and the Midshipman. Charlotte 
dragged up a light settee beneath the window*, and her 
girdle caught in its slats and was quite torn off, the 
heavy beads scattering in the grass. But she w*as ob- 
livious of little accidents now. She climbed on the 
bench, holding on to the shutter... the bench was tip- 
P3 T ... wiio w r as it dancing with Joe? 

It was Sylvia. There was no one else dancing now 

urn 


in the room. They had wound up the piano-player, 
put in a Strauss and were having an old-fashioned spin 
all alone. 

And how beautiful was Sylvia the wood-nymph, 
eyes shining, cheeks flushed, hair disordered... and her 
head was so close to his breast ! 

It was a gallant breast, too, in a Robin Hood cos- 
tume, and there was a manly look of love on his face 
that w r as worthy of the hero he impersonated. 

Joe and Sylvia! The Chief Engineer had meant to 
tease the Captain and, the falsehood she had created 
was becoming reality. Even now Marion Cody’s voice 
was laughing out on the beach. 

- Sylvia, come out! it kept calling. 

Charlotte did not wait to see if Sylvia responded. 
She had no thought, nor even curiosity about then) 
now. Strangely enough her jealousy had left her. She 
only realized that she was crying and alone... 






















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CHAPTER VII 


The Mate 


- Cody, did you know that the Misogynist was a 
Mormon? He was telling me all about it yesterday at 
the picnic. 

- How many wives?... asked Marion, turning lazi- 
ly from her book on the window sill. 

- I mean really. He was born of Mormon parents. 
His mother was the fifth wife. He was her third child. 

- That would hardly permit his being the seventh 
son, so there’s no luck; or, maybe he’s the seventy- 
seventh . 

- You will joke; but I am in earnest. Mr. Quinn 
is really born a Mormon. 

- Matey, you were drinking claret. ’Tis a decept- 
ive fluid, especially before the setting of the sun. 

- You are positively provoking, today. Go back to 
your book. I have finished. 

Captain Cody rose to an astonished sitting posture. 


200 


- Do you actually declare you’re not feeding me 
plum duff?... she demanded with wide-open eyes. 

- It’s pure Gospel hard-tack: that’s a fact. He 
was surprised that we didn’t all know it. 

- Then how comes he friends with Mr. Morgan? 

- I suppose a Mormon can be an apostate the same 
as anyone, can’t he? But Mr. Quinn lived with the 
Mormons till he was twenty, and then he went East 
to study at Yale. 

- And does his father still go on having wives? 

- His father and mother are both dead. They were 
massacred by the Apaches in Mexico. It seems the 
family had to leave the United States and they took up 
pioneer life in Chihuahua. 

- I must interview him and put him in my novel. 
A Mormon would spice it up. It’s getting stodgy. 

- A little off-color, don’t you think?... unless you 
make him horribly immoral? 

- Mormons are immoral. I shall only stick to the 
facts. 

- But Mr. Quinn is not immoral, is he? 

- Isn’t it the ne-plus-ultra of immorality to be a 
Misogynist?... especially for a Mormon?... A mormon 
bachelor? 

- But he’s an apostate. Besides, he may marry. 
He isn’t altogether too old. 

- He’s thirty six, my dear. That’s late to begin 
marrying seven wives. 

- His father had only five altogether. 

-Seven, if a Divine Providence in the guise of 


201 


Apaches had not interrupted his abominations. 

- Mr. Quinn says his mother and sisters led a 
beautiful life in Salt Lake City. One of his sisters stud- 
ied music and one was a painter. He, himself, became 
an amateur collector of steel-engravings. 

- Did the sisters go to Mexico and get killed? 

-No: one is married to a Gentile in Omaha... 

that’s the musical one; the other is unmarried. 

- Not typical... They won’t do for my novel. I 
must have them both second wives, at least. 

- But his mother was a fifth wife, and that’s in- 
teresting. In Salt Lake City, each wife had a separate 
house; but in Mexico they all lived together. 

- Scandalous! I hope you blushed when he told 
you of it. 

- He visited them there when he was a seniorin 
Yale. He says he never saw a happier family. There 
were thirty nine children in all. Of course, some of 
them were married themselves. It made quite a colony 
but they all ate and worked together, only separate, 
private apartments for each mother. 

- Sylvia, I am actually feeling squeamish. 

- His father was like a patriarch among them. 
He must have been a man of unusual individuality... 
He was a student of Hebrew, and read Sanscrit. 

- Matey, you are making this up. 

- I am not. And I think you’re perfectly horrid 
this morning. I think Mr. Quinn is a very nice man. 

- So do I, my dear, and I have been nasty, forgive 
me. But T was shocked. I still am. T confess it. Now 

202 


if you’d told me Mr, Plummer was a Mormon, I could 
have well believed it... but the Misogynist!... Well, 
well, we live and un-learn. - But I do wish I could 
put him in my novel. 

- Publishers wouldn’t stand for it, Cody. ‘T would 
hurt their sales with all the moral people. . . the wife of 
the bank-clerk in Oshkosh, you know. 

- The men might buy the book and read it on the 
sly, Marion suggested meditatively. I’d love to write 
a book just for men. 

- Bernard Shaw says it’s the men who are opposed 
to potygamy... The attractive man would get all the 
wives. 

- Even if the men are opposed to it, they like to 
think of it. Every man secretly thinks he is attractive. 

- Then they ought to be for it; and, for my part, 
1 think Bernard Shaw is wrong. He is always strain- 
ing himself to be different. 

- Does Mr. Quinn believe in polygamy? 

- He maintains all men do in secret; and in secret 
they practice it, he says. His theory is that men are 
ruled by women... Gentile men, that is; he says they 
have been subjugated by their mothers, then their wives 
take control and then their daughters... so all through 
their careers they are forced to lead double lives.. 

- Hypocrites! Does he actually admit it? 

- He says all men have a double standard of sex 
ethics. A public one which is displayed on all occa- 
sions to placate the women... and a private one that 
they act on but forswear, even with their male eom- 
203 


panions and friends. 

- The brutes! 

- He says some brutes are monogamous like the 
bears, and others are polygamous like the stag. With 
either sort, he thinks it would be immoral for one of 
the individuals to act against the nature of the species. 
And the men species is naturally polygamous. 

- Then all men are immoral. I agree with him. 
But what about the women? What are they? 

- They, too, he claims are polyandrous. 

- Well, they are... but being a woman, I deny it. 

- He says we all Ho, and we must. 

- Why? 

- Because the men wouldn’t like us to break down 
their public code of ethics. They insist that we shall 
play the game as they have invented it. 

- But he says women rule. 

- It is a part of man’s game that they shall rule. 
And he makes the women think they do it of their own 
accord . 

- The beast ! 

- He was very gentlemanly about it. 

- A beastly gentleman ! You stick to Mr. Plummer. 

- I’m not stuck to anybody Cody... reproachfully. 

- All women are sticking to something. Is it not 
written: Cleave to that which is good. 

- And you’re making out Mr. Plummer is good? 

- He’s certainly good to look at. He’s damned 
handsome. The Misogynist looks like an old maid. 

- His features are delicate, but he has a beard. 


204 


- He wears it to cover up his femininity. Sylvia 
Howard, I warn you against the Misogynist... A Mor- 
mon! Well, I suspected it all along! 

- He doesn't make love, exactly, do you think? 

- He does worse. He get’s all the women’s confi- 
dences. I blush to think of the secrets I’ve told him, 
myself. And he never tells a thing... the sly dog! Oh, 
I hate him! I knew he was abnormal! 

- A product of Moral an istic perversion? 

- Matey, darling, you ought to write psychology. 
You could invent terms that would pound old Freud 
to a jelly. 

- Well, I’m glad he’s a Mormon!... settled Sylvia. 
I’ve always wanted to know one, but I’ve hesitated for 
fear that I might not like one of his wives. 


Sylvia did not dismiss the subject of the Misogynist as 
easily as Marion had proposed she should do. There 
were many angles from which one might regard Mr. 
Quinn and find him worthy of study, if not of passion. 
He seemed to be great friends with Mr. Plummer, 
which alone would give him justifiable interest. Also, 
he was friends with Mr. Morgan. The three men seem- 
ed to have a mutual understanding that allowed them 
all intimacy and independence. It was as if they had 
a secret compact to trust one another : they were not 
suspicious, nor even inquisitive; they merely smiled. 

What Marion had said about giving confidences to 


205 


the Misogynist, Sylvia had experienced, as well. She 
had wondered sometimes if he passed these confidences 
on to the other men. She decided that he did not; or, 
if he did, it would be in a guarded way that would 
shield all delicacy. She was willing to trust her repu- 
tation in his hands. 

For she had to talk to somebody about Joseph 
Plummer, Giuseppe, as she sometimes thought of him 
in secret. She found it necessary to express her admira- 
tion for his manly frankness, for his brook-like laugh- 
ter, for his antics of a colt. He could be tender, too, 
but that she did not speak of. It was not fitting that 
his friend should think him tender. 

Mr. Plummer was begging her to sit for her port- 
rait, and she had made up her mind to do it on the 
instant of his asking, but she had not given yet her as- 
sent, because why?., because she could not break the 
news to Marion. 

She had talked to the Misogynist about it and he 
had agreed that women’s friendships were apt to be 
tyrannical. Men friendships were, too, sometimes, 
when the men were young, but the women grew worse 
as they grew older whereas men became more tolerant 
with years. 

Sylvia had suggested that women’s affections were 
grounded deeper, but the Misogynist had thought the 
contrary and had argued for it. 

- It is the shallow water that is ruffled by the peb- 
bles, he said; the old proverb that still waters lie deep 
was a true one. 

20 (> 


- You think men are not jealous like the women?., 
she had asked. 

- Often-times they are as jealous, no doubt; but 
their philosophy, or is it their affection, permits them 
to see around the jealousy and behind it. In their first 
loves, the males are profoundly jealous, but later on in 
life, most of the masculine jealousy is kept up by the 
conventional sense of honor, which is a product of ed- 
ucation and not emotion. 

It was difficult to think of the Misogynist as being 
jealous, certainly, but it was also difficult to think of 
his being in love. With Giuseppe it was also difficult 
to imagine, but that was because of quite another rea- 
son... he would never have occasion for the passion as 
the women were always in love with him. 

But, as Sylvia considered, she did not think that 
she would be capable of the ignoble passion any longer, 
herself; and she was the most feminine of women. She 
had put this observation to Mr. Quinn, and a strong 
light of satisfaction had extended over his countenance 
as he was convinced that her statement was true. He 
even admitted that he might be mistaken in his conclu- 
sions concerning the sexes. He hoped he was. It gave 
him contentment to think so. As he thought of the 
Mormon life as he had known it in his early years, he 
could not remember a case where one wife had been 
jealous of another; whereas, on the contrary, he had 
known cases among the men. Perhaps it was the re- 
strictions forced upon the woman in a monogamous so- 
ciety that brought out jealousy. After all, tyranny is 
207 


the source of all base passions. It is not natural for a 
woman to monopolize a man, and being placed in a so- 
ciety where she may do so, she immediately becomes 
vicious and destructive. 

- But don’t you think a woman may be attracted 
by more than one man? Sylvia had stood up for femi- 
nine perquisites. 

- Oh, certainly. A normal woman is attracted by 
all men who are also normal; but in a polygamous so- 
ciety, there is so little opportunity to have a suggestion 
toward that attraction; and women more readily ac- 
cept and hold established customs. 

Sylvia had asked him if he preferred the polygam- 
ous marriage, and he had smiled and reflected for some 
moments... ‘If I did’, he had finally replied, ‘I might 
have remained among my people. But I did not. It is 
unnatural for a group of individuals, a sect, to live 
contrary to the spirit of their period. In my apostasy, 
1 may not ecen marry at all. That would be the resul- 
tant swinging of the pendulum.’ 

‘Perhaps a Mormon does not really love’, Sylvia 
had suggested. To which he had replied that he did 
not think they did love like the Gentiles. They were 
instructed to give their love to the Church. 

‘And do they do that?’ she had asked in curiosity. 

‘At least, their affection is so distributed over wo- 
men, children, friends and occupation, that it is thin- 
ned in the process’, he had replied. 

When she had quoted Marion... that ‘Mr. Plum- 
mer should be a Mormon’, the Misogynist had merely 
208 


shook his head and smiled... ‘Miss' Cody will never un- 
derstand the Mormons, nor Mr. Plummer, and, per- 
haps, she will never understand herself.’ 

Indeed, as Sylvia observed her friend through those 
months, she came to doubt more and more the infalli- 
bility of her judgment, that she had formerly accepted 
without question. That Marion was clever, she still in- 
sisted ; but there is such a thing as being too clever, of 
letting one’s cleverness run away with one. A desire 
for the epigrammatic often leads an enthusiast far from 
the truth. It sounds well to hit off a character in a few 
words; the trick is prevalent in all our modern litera- 
ture. But the fact still remains, none the less, that a 
character cannot be hit off in a few words. It is too 
complicated a product of heredity and environment to 
be reduced to congenital impulses and emotions. 

Sylvia had lived intimately with Marion now for 
three years. She had been rescued by her from the en- 
tanglements of a first love-affair. She would always 
feel grateful to Marion for that, for the thing was get- 
ting altogether sordid and disgusting, and she had not 
the courage or t lie energy to tell her persecutor to go, 
though she had grown utterly weary of his advances. 
Sylvia had not had a fair start with him, coming as 
she did from a home of refinement and somewhat Pu- 
ritanical New England surroundings. A graduate of 
one of the well-known girl’s colleges, she had taken 
her first situation, she then called it, in a new Boston 
publishing house just established, consisting of three 
enthusiastic young modernists and free thinkers, who 
209 


spelled literature and life with big letters, not stopping 
even with the capital initials but insisting on the cap- 
itals all through. All this had coincided with her own 
school -girl enthusiasm. She thought they were geniuses 
all three; one of them was married, one divorced, and 
the other scorned both divorce and marriage but not 
women. It was this one who began to pay court to Syl- 
via, who was engaged as a reader for the house. 

Free love theories have a fascination for the ignor- 
ant that they cease to maintain for the instructed. Syl- 
via had listened, considered, been tempted; but her 
early associations and training had held her firm. In 
time, when the insistence of her admirer had become 
somewhat crass, she had one day been discovered in 
tears by one of their novelists, Marion Cody, mascul- 
ine lady from Kentucky in fact, who had summarily 
taken the girl under her protection and told the pub- 
lisher where he “ got off” as she expressed it. Even 
though it had cost her a contract with this enthusiastic 
and rashly enterprising firm. Marion had carried her 
protegee off to New-York and the two had set up as 
bachelor maids, taking newspaper work or whatever 
offered them a living in the writing line, and indeed 
had come on very well. 

It was in the second year of their living together 
that they had met Ernest Swinnerton, the reformer. 
Marion had first flirted with him and found him harm- 
less, broken his heart, as he averred in deep melancho- 
ly, and then turned him over to Sylvia, who was com- 
forter and sympathizing friend. 

210 


To be the confidante of a man’s soul in trouble has 
also an attraction for young women and in due time 
Sylvia found herself again in love, but this time with a 
maternal affection that often proves more fatal to its 
possessor than a passion for a professor of free love. 
Fortunately or unfortunately for Sylvia, this hero had 
proved to be a puritan without reproach, and while he 
would share his inmost soul with a woman, his body 
was reserved for legal rites. He was poor, there were 
family reasons that he should not marry. His mother 
was a semi-invalid, who doted on him; there was a 
taint of insanity in the blood so she maintained, and 
Sylvia had been martyrized once more to selfish gods. 
Once again Marion Cody had interfered, had a quarrel 
with the mother and her priest son and the two girls 
had come to California for the winter, supported by the 
royalties of Marion’s novel, which was proving a good 
seller and going well, making it necessary that she 
should have a second done by spring. Ernest Swinner- 
ton was still writing, still pouring out his soul, but the 
letters were becoming rarer as the winter advanced, 
and Marion suspected that he was finding another fe- 
male and getting comfort that three thousand miles 
seemed to curtail. So much for Sylvia’s romance 
up to the present, when ‘The Man’ was thrust under 
her nose. 

Sylvia admitted from the first that she was drawn 
to him. There was such a dawning wonderment in his 
eyes. Morever he was handsome and he was strong. 
Two characteristics that had been denied both the 
211 


others. Bainbridge Leman, the first, had been swart 
and nervous, a hook nose, scanty lip, a pointed chin. 
His power had lain in a pair of piercing eyes, black 
and given to opalescent milky flashes. Also he had a 
shock of black curling hair... but no: she had to ad- 
mit he was not handsome. Ernest Swinnerton, on the 
contrary, had been blonde, inclined to baldness at the 
early age of thirty seven. He had an ungainly figure, 
tall and spare, and an extenuation of side face that 
was not prepossessing. Bainbridge had possessed a well- 
knit figure, though too delicate. Swinnerton gave the 
impression of being double jointed. His soul had been 
his asset, and his earnestness. He could talk about his 
problems for weeks together. The Man here, all glory- 
ing with radiant health, seemed neither to have theo- 
ries nor problems. He had admiration for pretty Syl- 
via in his courtesy. Yes, she could voluptuously learn 
to love him. 

But Marion Cody had other plans for her partner, 
that did not tend toward the groves of voluptuous love. 
Sylvia should be married, she would see to it. It was 
necessary that Marion get her well established. For 
herself she had a reserve back in Kentucky, a well es- 
tated bachelor who adored her, and as she looked for- 
ward someday to being Mrs. Lindsay Wellington, she 
also looked to visiting her friend likewise well estab- 
lished; why not Mrs. Alexander Morgan, as well as 
any? He was a widower, but that would serve to keep 
him steady. Marion had met Mr. Morgan in New York 
shortly after the- death of his wflfe, for that reason she 
212 


also often become servants of the rich, so that this de- 
mocracy did not in any way seem incongrous to her. 
She knew that many of the Spanish families, who now 
made up the stable service of the fashionable families, 
could boast of a lineage far superior to their employ, 
crs, and to her mind family antiquity was much more 
important than money or position in society. She liked 
her Giuseppe all the better when she realized that he 
was of old California stock and traced backward 
through Ohio to Connecticut and the New Haven Colo- 
ny of early date. 

She did experience a shock one day when she learn- 
ed through Marion Cody that he had attended a Span- 
ish ball, given in honor of the servants of the wealthy 
families. But when Carlos explained to her that the 
ball had been gotten up by himself and his brothers, it 
seemed natural that Giuseppe should attend. He would 
not wish to hurt his former play-fellow’s feelings by 
refusing to come to his party. That he had danced with 
any of the servants, she would not believe: but her 
father had met something of the same problems in New 
Hampshire and she had admired him for remaining 
true to his childhood associates. Marion Cody from 
Kentucky felt differently about it. But in Kentucky 
the servants had been negroes. 

An intruder in the studio that did annoy Sylvia, 
however, was Cecily Blount though she never came in 
to the garden. Mr. Plummer always met her and turned 
her back, asked her to wait in the studio or come later. 
He had an easy way of turning people off when he did 
214 


not wish to be interrupted.... But why should Cecily 
Blount make so free with his studio, merely when she 
had her portrait painted there? It was true that she 
did not come often and that she used the pretext of an 
errand: a forgotten drapery, some photographs she 
had borrowed, or, consultation on some change in a 
a dance she was creating. It was plain that she was 
not invited. None of the denizens of the villa were, nor 
did they come. Charlotte Gaylord, who had much the 
better right, had only made one formal visit at the stu- 
dio, and that in the company of the Midshipman. Syl- 
via had heard of Mrs. Duke’s calling sometimes, but 
even that did not annoy her like the presumption of Ce- 
cily Blount. The dancer had an air of being at home, 
and though this was not encouraged by the host, it was 
not either resented as it should be. 

As Sylvia thought it out to herself, she decided 
that Giuseppi lacked the domestic instinct. People in 
his house were no more to him than people in the 
street. If they did not interfere w r ith his work, he did 
not notice them. If they did, he said good-morning 
pleasantly, and dismissed them. How easily, how im- 
personally, he lived! And yet, how all his charm was 
his personality! He was a product of the California 
sun and the sea; the soil that is always bathed in sum- 
mer, and knows naught of winter’s frost, or snows, or 
storms. His presence reflected sunshine, warm and 
golden... He was not created for stormy passions or 
gloomy thoughts. Gradually Sylvia came to think he 
was not created for matrimony, though she realized 

m 


and he would say, too, that she had a splendid chance. 
Sylvia guessed it was the Mysogynist at once, and she 
began to blame him, just a little. He would make a 
capital husband for Charlotte: he had money, and... 
Well, what the Misogynist lacked was initiative: a vir- 
tue in a husband, but in a lover... Sylvia would have 
to help the thing along. 

It would he pleasant, she told herself, to have 
Charlotte for a companion. They might travel in Eu- 
rope; they looked well together; and, one advantage, 
Charlotte would have no opportunity to become jealous; 
the Mysogynist was quite harmless, and would never 
waver. As for Sylvia’s being jealous about Giuseppi, 
well... not of Charlotte... she did not think so, not if 
Giuseppe behaved himself. He would behave himself 
with Mrs. Quinn, that was certain. He had great re- 
spect for the honor of his friend. 

Sylvia realized that she was leaving Marion out of 
this picture. She sighed for it, but she could not crowd 
her in. There was Mr. Morgan, unmated, and still 
marriageable, and it was difficult to think of the other 
men without him. He would go well, too, with the 
travelling in Europe. He would be a balance-wheel to 
the party, give it presence; but Marion was a false note 
either as Mrs. Morgan or as Miss Cody, or Mrs. Any- 
body-else. She did talk with the Man about Marion 
Cody, merely tentatively, in an impersonal way. She 
could see he was not easy in his mind about her, though 
he praised her for the brilliancy of her wit. 

‘But you should get away from her,’ he added... 

21o. 


She overbarks you where you are really the most clever. 

It seemed that Giuseppi had no money, and he 
gave this as his reason for not entertaining the idea of 
marriage. 

‘Quinn and Mr. Morgan can settle down’, he had 
once remarked, ‘but I must not marry till I’ve made 
my fortune.’ At another time, he had told her that he 
was too laz3 r to make a fortune, and this she could very 
well believe. She knew already of his having turned 
away two portrait orders, well-paying ones, Miss Rea- 
mer and Miss Clarke. ‘They’re not interesting’, he 
had explained to her seriously, ‘besides I have spend- 
ing-money to last me three more months. I was paint- 
ing a fake countess in Algeria. Gee, but she was a cor- 
ker!... and some bird. 

Sylvia hardly knew whether to find more fault 
with the ‘corker’, or the ‘bird’. She began to realize 
that, as a future husband, a portrait-painter might be 
difficult. 

At times, she discarded all ideas of marriage, and 
dreampt of an exquisite affair of love. This matter she 
could not discuss with Giuseppi, but it became a fre- 
quent topic of conversation with Mr. Quinn. The Mis- 
ogynist had a fairly complete set of views on that sub- 
ject. They talked it over at the tennis court while 
they were resting. Both of them were devoted to sin- 
gles, and they chose an hour when the others were at 
siesta. 

Love, or, rather, a love-affair, the Misogynist had 
expatiated, was something like a hybrid rose. It should 
2 16 


pass through all the stages: it should sprout, flourish T 
flower, and then he allowed to die. H di#1 not connect 
the idea with marriage; that belonged to the more nat- 
ural, the fruiting varieties of flowers. A love-affair might 
come before a marriage, or after, hut in any case it 
should not be interfered with. It would die of its own 
passion in due time and the victims should be cherished 
protected... Yes, on this point the Misogynist was quite 
certain. If a husband, for instance, saw his wife, the 
mother of his children, falling in love, it was his duty 
to shelter the growth, not deny it. As a husband he 
should protect his wife from public scorn, from the 
lover she needed no protection. The affair should be 
left to take its own course and in the end the wife would 
return to her family. And she would be richer for the 
experience, he maintained; in fact Sylvia was alto- 
gether shocked and breathless. Captain Cody said she 
was playing tennis too hard. 

- And should a wife give her husband the same lib- 
erties? Sylvia had gasped... it was impossible to blush 
before the Misogynist. 

- The normal husband takes them on the sly. It is 
not a question of so much importance, said Mr. Quinn. 

- You mean to say that Americans... Sylvia could 
get no further in her amazement. 

- I am not speaking of milk-sops, said Mr. Quinn 
calmly. I mean just normal, average men. 

- I can’t agree with you, said Sylvia. 

- Don’t misunderstand or misread my statistics. 
The average normal American husband doesn’t have 


love affairs, I grant yon. He is too prosaic, too unim- 
aginative, too old; for the average American stops grow- 
ing when he marries. What I say is that when the nor- 
mal American does have youth enough left in him to 
fall in love with a woman after he is married, he does 
have an affair on the sly. 

- Do you think when Mr. Plummer, for instance, 
marries, he will prove himself an average normal Amer- 
ican and stop growing? Sylvia was indiscreet with the 
Misogynist; all women were: they felt that they could 
trust him. 

- Mr. Quinn had hedged on this, and had consid- 
ered. He evidently did not like to lay hare the person- 
al weaknesses of his friends... 

‘Pl>«tj— i* ffardly the average normal American... 
though he might be that, too. It is probable that he 
will never marry. - No: he probably will.* 

Whereupon, Miss Howard had laughed, and told 
Mr. Quinn that in generalization he was amazing, but 
in concrete instances he was utterly commonplace. 

The Misogynist had a stammering, timid way of 
being apologetic that was both pitiful and pleasurable 
to see. 


Charlotte Gaylord made a gay story of her night’s ad- 
ventures in the dining-room the next day at the lunch 
hour. She had a way of not sparing herself in such 
descriptions, and could appreciate the ludicrous nature 
218 


of her misfortunes, and vividly reproduce the whole 
tragedy, touched with the comic that surrounds all 
tragedy. At such times, she surpassed Marion Cody, 
herself. She dwelt upon the most touching points with 
genuine merriment: the sand in her shoes, the tearing 
of the white China silk, the breaking of the girdle and 
consequent loss of all the beads, the tippy settee on 
which she stood to peer through the shutter; but she 
did not describe the expression on Sylvia’s face as she 
had floated about the room in the arms of Mr. Plum- 
mer. Sylvia wondered if she had had any expression, 
and went to Charlotte’s room, afterwards, for a chat, 
hoping she could find out in some fashion. Anyway, 
she wanted to consult her about the sitting for her por- 
trait, for it was not Sylvia’s nature to do anything un- 
der-handed. She valued Charlotte’s friendship too 
much for that. 

- Mr. Plummer wants me to pose for him, she be- 
gan frankly. It seems, he has finished with Miss Blount. 

- You are beautiful, I thought he would ask you, 
replied Charlotte. I have often wanted to ask you to 
sit for me. But I am not a famous painter, like Joe 
Plummer. 

- Is he so famous, then? I have never heard his 
name in New York. 

- He is not so famous as he deserves to be; nor, 
as I hope, he will be, if he keeps on. He lacks worldly 
ambition, which is a pity. He ought to be painting 
now in a city studio instead of philandering about in 
a California climate. 

219 


- You know, 1 would love to sit for you at any 
time. I’ve never been painted. I’d like to try it. 

- Well, begin with him. You’ll find it interesting. 
Sometime, when I’m in shape, I’ll ask you, too. 

- Aren’t you in shape now? 

- I’m all unsettled in my life... I have so many 
things to consider. 

- It might settle you to have a steady task. 

- No: I wouldn’t do it justice. And you deserve 
justice. Could you keep a secret, if I told you?... not 
tell even Marion, or anybody? 

- Of course I could. 

- Mr. Morgan has asked me to marry him. 

- Mr. Morgan! I thought it was Mr. Quinn. 

- What made you think of him? Has he ever said 
anything? 

- No: I only thought he might be looking about 
for somebody. You can never trust a misogynist, you 
know. 

- It’s all nonsense about his being a misogynist. 
That’s one of Marion’s literary fabrications. He likes 
all women. That’s his failing. He is as much a Mor- 
mon as he w r as when he was born. 

- I never knew he w T as born a Mormon till the oth- 
er day. 

- No? I knew it before I ever met him. Mr. Mor- 
gan told me of him in Chicago. 

- Perhaps that was the reason I thought you might 
be interested in Mr. Quinn... Because you never speak 
of him, and yet seem to be such friends. 

220 


- He’s friends with everybody, smiled Charlotte. 

- And are you considering Mr. Morgan? You really 
ought to. Criminy!... but marriage is something fierce 
to conider! 

- Do you think a woman should consider marriage 
when she does not love?... or at least, loves somebody? 

- I would consider it... but not do it, said Sylvia 
gravely . 

- I wish I could do it without considering. I am so 
tired of fighting my battles. They don’t seem to amount 
to anything even if I win. The spoils of victor}" are so 
easily spoiled. 

Sylvia was inwardly readjusting her dream-pictures 
of married travelling-companions in Europe. It would 
be sad to leave the Misogynist out. Would it be possi- 
ble to couple him with Marion? 

- Do you think Marion would make a good wife?., 
she launched abruptly. 

- I should like to see her two years married to Joe 
Plummer. He would n’d be strutting around so chesty 
as he is now. 

- Do you think we’d like him plucked of all his 
feathers? 

- I’d enjoy having him for a time where I didn’t 
like him. He’s actually making eyes at Beatrice Knox. 

- The Midshipman has a crystal casing to her heart 
I think. 

- I envy her. She does right to choose a boy. The 
ideal thing would be to go through life alone, but we 
seem to be built to want attention. 

221 


- Mr. Morgan would never fail in that direction. 

- No: that’s the difficulty. He’s too good for a 
husband. A woman needs someone she can scold. 

- I’ve quarrelled with two men; I’m tired of it. 

- They weren’t husbands. They were free to run 
away. 

- It would he aw T ful to have somebody who couldn’t. 

- It would be delightful, dear; it’s the one joy of 
marriage. 

- You are as cynical as Marion on the marriage 
question. Now, I go about thinking honey would drip 
from our finger-tips. Get your portrait painted, and 
you’ll have a different opinion about it. 

- Do you really advise me to do it? I’m afraid of 
Marion. 

- It’s an experience worth having. So is the pict- 
ure; or, it will be. He will do you a masterpiece. 

- Yes? 

- I’ll settle with Marion, if she gets on her high 
horse. But not a hint to her, or anybody, about Mr. 
Morgan. 

- Poor Marion! I think she intended him for me. 
She thinks she’s opaque, but she’s transparent as a 
bubble. 

- I don’t want to stand in the way of the Captain, 
laughed Charlotte. 

- After all, it’s the Chief Engineer who really runs 
the ship, chimed in Sylvia. As a figure-head, Captain 
Cody is a great success. Why don’t you come down to 
the studio and paint me at the same time T am sitting 
222 


for Mr. Plummer? 

- We’ve tried that in the old days, and it didn’t 
work. It would work even less now. No: go alone. 

- I have thought of Marion as a chaperone; but 
Mr. Plummer doesn’t want her. 

- He’s right, there, if only for the picture’s sake. 
Besides, chaperones are out of date in painter’s studios. 

- As they are everywhere in the modern world, 
said Sylvia, rising to go. Only fashionables live now 
in the nineteenth century. 

She carried her dreams into the garden. 

- So it’s Mr. Morgan, Giuseppe wants her to mar- 
ry... I believe he really loves her too. But he knows she 
should have money and position. There is something 
almost noble about Giuseppe. I wonder if the Misogy- 
nist has money? 


Marion had made less objectiones than Sylvia had antic- 
ipated to the announcement of the arrangement for the 
portrait. A tightening of the lips, a snap of the black 
eyes and the remark that she hoped that the picture 
would turn out successful, was all the Captain had 
voushsafed at the moment. Perhaps the quiet way in 
which Sylvia had made the statement had something to 
do with its reception. She had not asked for advice on 
the matter, not even as to the frock she should wear. 
Also Marion was getting worried about her novel which 
had been sadly neglected for all the company. Every 


day there had been something in the way of an excur- 
sion or a party for the afternoon or evening... and 
morning given to work after such excitements are apt 
to be wasted in retrospection. Especially if there is a 
a companion in the next room bursting with details of 
remenbered conversations. People have to be discussed 
and analysed, motives established, past constructions 
re-adjusted and general gossip attended to, along with 
arrangements for coming events. Marion talked laugh- 
ingly of going back to New York to get a rest; this 
constant round of gayeties was overpowering her; Syl- 
via had suggested that if she had the hut all to herself 
in the morning, as she would do while Sylvia was at her 
sittings, the novel would probably goon better... at 
least it would go on, whereas before it had seemed stalled 
altogether. If there was a slight reserve growing up 
between the friends at the same time, Sylvia comfort- 
ed herself that it could easily be broken down when the 
portrait was completed and the artist had passed out of 
her life. She kept telling herself resolutely that he 
would pass out, that she wanted him to do so, but un- 
derneath she had a hope that he would not, though in 
what relation he should remain she did not know. He 
was so satisfying, so companionable, so golden... that 
her happiness was a treasure she would not lose. She 
was experiencing all the joys of being loved without 
any of the repugnance from physical surrender. There 
she sat on a stone bench, under an olive tree, for so he 
had decided to paint her out of doors. There were sprays 
of sweet alyssum in her lap and her eyes were left to 
224 


dwell on a fountain, with a pensivene33 of unrecogniz- 
ed pleasure. She took an unconscious delight in the 
thought that the man’s gaze was playing over her fea- 
tures... like the sunlight. If sometimes she caught the 
glance ardent even piercing, there was an impersonali- 
ty in it that kept her from embarassement. If he poss- 
essed her it was but as a proposition of light and color, 
and she was contented to let him have his whole will. 
Sometimes he talked to her quietly, often he encour- 
aged her chatter, he never argued, never objected, nev- 
er urged. He too, seemed saturated with contentment, 
expressed by the olive tree and the carved bench and 
the fountain... For in the back-ground was the blue 
sea untroubled like a plaque of solid turquoise beneath 
the sky. 

As she romanticised, this seemed to her like happy 
marriage. So two souls might dwell in a paradise of 
bliss. Always the Man was thinking of her; she filled 
his thoughts; she was the embodiment of his visions, 
his aspirations. In working for himself he wa3 using 
her, and even her white dress was a thing for him to 
worship. How different from those other men who bad 
loved her, or had loved themselves perhaps in her sym- 
pathy. The first, dark, nervous, insistent, penetrative; 
the second, pouring out the anguish flood of his soul to 
her. The Man was satisfied with the pleasance of her 
countenance; himself he could liberate on his canvas. 
He did not crowd her with his ego, he took her as he 
saw her merely into his own soul, and after mingling 
her with himself and his knowledge he gave her forth 


transmuted into light. 

Those were long, happy mornings like placid 
poems, she wished that they might never have an end. 

The Misogynist came sometimes to chat and lin- 
ger: his was the only presence the painter would endure. 
Mr. Quinn would come up early to lunch at the studio. 
He loved to cook and make household service about the 
place. He looked at the picture in its progress in an 
affectionate rather than in a critical way. He had the 
attitude of a gentle priest officiating at a marriage. He 
accepted the fact of Sylvia’s gift to the painter . and 
seemed to confer on it the benediction of his approval. 
In return she liked to show him that she was happy. 
That the olive tree and the fountain were in her heart. 
He never sat, he never loitered in the work hour,, but 
he came and went like some breeze up from the sea. It 
was plain to see that his presence soothed the artist or 
left him at least untroubled as it had found him. Sylvia 
reflected that there seemed to be an understanding be- 
tween the two men that she had never before observed 
between two women. Even between husband and wife 
she had not seen it, except at short intervals of time. 
It was not love so much as it was trust and acceptance. 
She wondered if their past had always been so quiet. 

Those were long, sunny mornings beneath the ol- 
ive tree and the blue of the summer sea was far away. 


But if Captain Cody seemed indifferent to the fate of 

22ft 


her first officer, the Chief Steward made it up in solici- 
tude. Letitia had a keen noes for a bit of scandal, or 
romance as she more poetically chose to call it. 

- If you don’t watch you will find your nose out of 
joint, she said on the day of the first sitting to Cecily 
Blount who was teaching the Midshipman to smoke, 
after weeks of persuasion for the undertaking of the 
adventure, 

Cecily laughed and took hold of the organ men- 
tioned. 

- It might add to my beauty!., was all she said. 

- I don’t see why you should make so much of a 
portrait being painted, tossed the Midshipman. Mr. 
Plummer has made several sketches of me. 

- You sly little puss! exclaimed Letitia, and you 
have not shown me a single one of them. 

- He didn’t give them to me of course. He didn’t 
give Cecily her portrait, do you suppose? 

- That’s different. He has painted it for exhibition. 

- Well, mine weren’t, but I don’t attach any im- 
portance to his keeping them. John and Ben have 
drawn me a dozen times. 

- John and Ben are students, replied Letitia. When 
an older man paints a portrait he has his reasons. 

- I’m sure the reasons are justifiable what ever 
they are. I find Mr. Plummer a perfect gentleman, 
though I insist I shall marry Mr. Quinn. 

- Cecily keeps her own counsel, I notice, Letitia 
tried shrewdly to draw her out. 

- You made a mistake when you stopped at one 


husband. If you’d had three, you wouldn’t attach so 
much importance to the first. 

- What do you mean? the Chief Steward was brist- 
ling. 

- Why a man is only one man after all. There are 
a lot more in the sea... to speak of fishes. 

- You mean 3 7 ou are tired of Mr. Plummer.. Plum- 
mer! what a horrid name! 

- Why, no: I : m not tired of him. 1 like him. But 
Mr. Morgan interests me now. I had cast my eye on 
the Misogynist but since Beatrice had made her claims, 
I yield him to her. 

- Mr. Morgan will never marry again, announced 
the poetess. He remains true to the memories of a hap- 
py marriage. 

- I thought according to you no marriage was happy. 

- When one of the parties is dead, Letitia makes 
an exception, sputtered Beatrice who had just burned 
her tongue. 

- Death does heal many wounds, Letitia admitted. 
I could have forgiven Mr. Swan if he had died. 

- For my part, if a first marriage has been happy, 
drawled Cecily, I should think it a reason for under- 
taking another. Just as if one love affair had been suc- 
cessful, the parties should be looking out for another to 
carry on. 

-Now, I think Sylvia Howard’s way of reasoning 
more, justifiable, put in the Midshipman. When two 
love affairs have turned out unsatisfactory to hope for 
better luck in a third. 

228 


- Is that what she said? asked Letitia eagerly. 

- Of course, not. Sylvia is too refined to say or 
think such a thing. It was Marion Cody who put the 
I>ut the words in my mouth. 

- 1 think Captain Cody is jealous. 

- What does she care for Mr. Plummer? She will 
choose a man with an aristocratic name. 

- What a fuss about a name! crooned Cecily musi- 
cally. A wife doesn’t call her husband by his last name. 
Call him Josey. 

- I always called my husband Mr. Swan, said Le- 
titia primly. 

- What!... gasped the two girls together. 

- When he was kissing you! added the dancer. 

-You girls know very little about marriage: re- 
plied Letitia assuming the dignity of experience. 

- His first name was Joseph, you told me. 

- Thomas Joseph. Thomas made me think of cats. 

- Tom is chummy, and Tommy is simply darling. 
I don’t believe you really loved him,., sighed the Mid- 
shipman. 

- Well, the thing for us to think about is Sylvia, 
and how we can save her from that Man. I love her 
too much to see her suffer. She is the dearest little 
creature in the world. 

- I don’t see why you think she will suffer because 
a man makes love to her, declared Cecily. 

- Of course, when he has tired of her, he will cast 
her off like an old glove. 

- I thought you were going to say, as he cast me 

229 


off, purred Cecily softly. And, now I think of it, you 
have shown little pity for me... talked of my nose be- 
ing out of joint. 

- You are not like Sylvia, mourned Letitia. And, 
in the first start, you set out for experience. 

- And what is Sylvia setting out for, I wonder? 

- Sylvia doesn’t set out... she sits; corrected the 
Midshipman, always loyal to her friends. 

- Sylvia’s is a very delicate sensitive nature. You 
are hardy, and can stand a little hardship. 

- I’m sure I’m ready when my time comes. I may 
encounter it to-night for Mr. Plummer and I are going 
to the theatre in Santa Barbara. I will ask him to treat 
me rough, as you advise it. 

- What! Are you going to walk? 

- Going in the road-cart. I ride behind. 

- It’s safer than in front, mused the Midshipman. 

- What a little innocent you are!... laughed Cecily 
affectionately. 

- This Man is breaking up all our fun!... flouted 
the Chief Steward. Charlotte is planning charades for 
the servants in the music-room, and now you are run- 
ning away. 

- Miss Gaylord doesn’t care for me in her charades 
unless they’re to prevent my going with Joe Plummer. 

- You’re perfect^ nasty, Cecily, you know you are. 
Charlotte wanted you for Queen of Sheba. Mrs. Stowe 
has asked the Spaniards to see us, and they look on you 
as the wonder of the household. 

- They are dears, the Spanish. Well, I’ll be Queen 


230 


of Sheba, and go to Santa Barbara afterwards. Any- 
way, we’re going chiefly for the drive. There’s a ballet 
in the third act we want to see. 

- A ballet in Santa Barbara! scorned Mrs. Swan! 

- Sometimes they’re very good in the small com- 
panies. There’s more opportunity for individual talent. 

-Well, I think it’s disgusting for you to go off 
three miles alone with that Man! You’re, all of you, 
crazy about him. 

- I only rode two miles and a half with him, teased 
Beatrice. Letitia, would you consent to ride two miles? 

- No! I wouldn’t ride a mile, though he begged 
me on both of his knees. And I think you’re, both of 
you, hard hearted about Sylvia. I’m going to talk to 
Marion about it. 

- Charlotte would have more influence; advised 
Cecily. Letitia, you always do the wrong thing when 
you undertake to manage other people’s affairs. 

- You know 7 he rightly belongs to Charlotte. 

- Her right is the right of discovery, cooed Cecily, 
but mine is the right of conquest; and I mean to de- 
fend it. There, Letitia, she added wdth genuine contri- 
tion, don’t get angry, but stay and help me with my 
costume for Queen of Sheba. 

- Charlotte has searched some pictures out from 
the library. I’ll go over and get them from her, offered 
Beatrice. 


The charades had proved to he a great success, and the 
conversation at lunch n^ x t day would have been 
amicable reminiscences fo their production, had not 
Cecily Blount brought forth a more interesting subject, 
that of her Santa Barbara theatre excursion which un- 
derneath contained the thought of the Man. The fact 
that the Man was not mentioned but goes to show the 
sincerity of ladies lunch talk. There was sincerity to 
come out however in other subjects with feelings stirred 
up by the hidden cause. 

- What kind of people were in the audience? Sylvia 
had innocently asked. 

- Spanish mostly and tradesmen from the people. 
I saw our butcher boy and the gardener from the club. 

- None of the better families? asked the Captain 
frigidly. 

- If by better you mean richer, I didn’t see any. 
Our metropolitan friends are accustomed to bigger 
shows. 

- I should think you would have found it extreme- 
ly uncomfortable sitting in such an audience. - The 
Captain tried hard to keep a tone of graciousness, 
though it was difficult. 

- Why, just before I had been performing for the 
same class. If I can act charades for the servants, I 
don’t see why I can’t sit with them in an audience to 
see a professional show. 

- You know, Marion, chimed in Sylvia the pacifi- 
cator, that we sit nesxt all sorts of people in the theater 
in New York. 

232 


- A large city is different from a small town. What 
we do here sets an example, protested the Captain. 

- There was nothing objectionable in the show, de- 
clared Cecily. A little cheaper in its vulgarity than 
New York perhaps. But the very cheapness offers a 
picturesqueness of realism that a more highly artificial 
performance may lack. 

Captain Cody recognized in this a principle of Mr. 
Plummer. But she gave no sign of thinking it any- 
thing but original with Miss Blount. 

- It is a question of personal taste no doubt, she 
replied and carried the conversation back to the char- 
ades. 

But the subject had lost its charm for all the wo- 
men. They were thinking of the long ride in the road- 
cart, wondering what had passed on the trip, whether 
they had gone somewhere for supper after the theatre, 
and things that they did not like to ask about. 

- I think that woman is unendurable, Marion be- 
gan when she and Sylvia were in the privacy of their 
hut. She is always showing off her intimacy with that 
man. I’m sure I don’t see anything in it to the advan- 
tage of either. 

- A harmless relation enough, I imagine, Sylvia 
had remarked; but she did feel uneasy about it. Giu- 
seppe never spoke of Cecily Blount at the sittings or of 
any other of the household for that matter. Evidently 
he believed in keeping his friendships separate and 
made it a principle never to gossip. He talked of books, 
of poetry, of art, and often read aloud from some vol- 

OQQ 

Zoo 


ume. Sylvia found that she was getting very little per- 
sonal grasp of her artist. They were alone in their gar- 
den beneath the olive tree. It was an abstract world 
outside, when they entered it, and the Misogynist 
brought no rumors of generalities. 

She was surprised one daj r to learn from some ac- 
cidental phrase in the conversation that the Man was 
dwelling here on his native heath. Even his studio was 
the house where he was born, having been remodeled 
from the original farm house of his father. It had been 
reserved in the sale of the farm to Mr. Morgan and for 
that reason came to cut so deeply into the heart of his 
estate; yes, in the painter’s childhood days, before the 
entry of the wealthy residents, much of the surround- 
ing land was in the hands of the Spanish ranchmen. 
The chauffeur Carlos had been the chum of his boyhood 
and even now came and went without formality, never 
stopping to ring at the courtyard gate. The garden in 
which Sylvia posed under the olive tree lay beyond the 
house and further down the hill. In it the painter 
worked often like a laborer, and other neighbours be- 
side Carlos often visited him; old friends of his child- 
hood it seemed. Certainly they were not people that 
one met at a Country Club for instance, nor at any of 
the homes of Sylvia’s acquaintances. They called him 
Joe, or the Spanish Pepe or even Pepito, and he seemed 
in no way to find their familiarity out of place: Sylvia 
herself had been accustomed to spend her summers in 
a New Hampshire village where her father had lived 
In similar relation to the native inhabitants, who had 
234 


flower-bright meadows, where Charlotte was the troub- 
led waters of a mountain gorge. But, they both reflected 
the sky, they both loved tree shade, and both had ni- 
ads spirits to tempt a satyr, should any come charging 
against their course. The satyr, when he appeared had 
done little charging. He had seated himself pictures- 
quely rather on a stone and both nymphs were flutter- 
ing about him in a way that he evidently admired. 
A fair minded person could hardly blame him if when 
the mountain maid had sulkingly taken to cover, he 
should smile on the one that sported in the meadows. 
Men all prefer sunshine to showers. 

The question was not with the Man but with Sylvia. 
Was she growing heartless, unfaithful to her friend? 
Since she could not consult Marion, her usual oracle, 
she had referred the matter to the satyr himself. 

And what a guileless, innocent creature the satyr 
bad proven himself to be. He was astounded at the 
suggestion that his duty lay toward Charlotte. They had 
known each other in Chicago that was true. How can 
one help knowing an artist one lives next door to? Nat- 
urally they had gone home together in the evenings, 
when both had been out to the same party; naturally 
they had borrowed cooking utensils from each other and 
even shared food when one’s supplies were running 
short. Christian names, yes, that was the custom of the 
group. There were twenty studios, together, not two. 

Then the satyr had grown serious, confidential, 
but with a reserve that he was not at liberty to explain. 
He did say, however, that Charlotte ought to marry, 
235 


had brought Sylvia to California and engaged a hut on 
the Morgan estate. Unfortunately she did not know 
that Mr. Morgan was already considering Charlotte, 
but if she had known it, Miss Cody was not one to hes- 
itate for obstacles. If she wanted a thing, she told her- 
self she got it. A far greater obstacle than Charlotte 
Gaylord was that Man, who had plumped himself down 
in their garden, this painter of women’s faces... oh, 
the basilisk: Captain Cody realized she had an enemy 
to contend with. 

But while Charlotte Gaylord did not seem a form- 
idable enemy to the plans of Marion Cody, she held 
an important place in the attention of Sylvia Howard. 
It was not many hours after that meeting of sunshine 
and packing cases, before Sylvia knew all about Mr. 
Plummer and how Charlotte held a mortgage on him 
of three years standing, as Marion had so graphical- 
ly expressed it. S) r lvia had a great respect for the 
rights of others. She had been bred in New England 
where men are scarce articles, and she recognized the 
rights of discovery and preemption. Moreover she had 
liked Cnarlotte from the start. There was something 
wistful, something tragic in the beautiful girl. Char- 
lotte had a genuineness of rare quality, an almost child- 
like trust and confidence in those who appealed, and 
Sylvia was one of those breezy little beauties that ap- 
peal to every man woman or child. Indeed the two 
girls went well together. For while Charlotte was pas- 
sionate, restless, darkling, Sylvia was pleasant, calm 
and sunny. She was a brook flowing through open 
2'3'fv 


that he should have children to complete him... He 
loved children, as he loved animals of all kinds, and he 
often had the children of Carlos or some of the Spanish 
stable-men about him. The Danish gardener’s little 
daughter often sat in his court-yard, and she spoke of 
Don Pepito with great seriousness. But as a husband, 
in the sense of the relation as Sylvia saw it, she found 
Giuseppe difficult to establish. There was no exaction, 
no tyranny over women, no stability of attachment for 
an affinitj of soul. He made love to her openly, frank- 
ly, as the sunshine might do to a flower. A better fig- 
ure than the sunshine might be a bee - No: she pre- 
ferred the metaphor of the sunshine. 

He told her she was beautiful. He told her why... 
He praised her eyes, her hair, which he sometimes had 
to stroke... the wind might blow a strand across her 
face in a way that interfered with the picture: then he 
praised her hands, her feet, her figure, then her dis- 
tinction of character that gave all her features grace. 
He discoursed on all these things, as he painted them, 
with the joy that a landscape painter has for his sub- 
ject. Yes; there was something more than that, a per- 
sonal fervor. His voice was rich and tremulous at times. 

And in return Sylvia, sitting, also loved him. His 
firm poise, the agile shifting of each posture! He wore 
a basque cap of gold brown clot.h to shade his eyes. His 
corduroys held a richness of bronze gold. His beard was 
brown, his hair and eyebrows browner, his eyes were 
glowing orbs of brownish light. His lips showed tempt- 
ing carmine through brown moustache. There was a 


flush of rose beneath the sun-tan of his cheeks. He was 
love, he was laughter, he was contentment... Would 
she yield to him?., she sometimes wondered dreamily. 


CHAPTER VIII 


The Captain 


Marion Cody knew enough about Sylvia not to oppose 
her when she had made up her mind. There was a de- 
mure little look of decision in the hazel eyes, a sugges- 
tion of firmness about the lips that the Captain had 
learned to respect so long as she could hold her temper 
in control. For three years her temper had been bridled 
when occasion was necessary that it should be. She 
knew that a break with Sylvia might prove final, at 
least it would endure for many years, and she loved her 
friend too dearly to let it happen; she had had expe- 
rience in losing friends before. 

As she watched Sylvia’s eyes becoming more and 
more love-lit, and noted the dreamy listlessness of her 
demeanor, she realized that here was a greater call for 
subtlety than had ever been demanded of her before. 
Ridicule would not serve her purpose any better than 
objection would have done. Neither would argument or 
240 


reason stand her in stead, even affection seemed power- 
less and futile. Besides Marion found her affection 
growing fierce and as difficult to control as her anger. 

She went down to the bed-rock of her philosophy 
and planned her campaign on the weakness of the Man. 
From generalization she drew deductions for the con- 
crete. All men were vain... therefore this one was vain. 
She would have to defeat this man through his vanity. 
Fortunately he was handsome, that would help her, for 
vanity increases in geometric propoption to good looks. 
An axiom applicable to men as well as women. 

Yes: she must flatter Mr. Plummer and to flatter 
a man a woman must make love to him. It was a hu- 
miliating game to play before her rivals. But Sylvia’s 
happiness was at stake, she must throw her gage. She 
liked to think of it as a tournament rather than as a 
gambler’s game. She was the Queen who would enter 
the lists royally. 

There was something of Queen Elizabeth in the 
Captain. Banter washer favorite weapon of attack. For- 
tunately Mr. Plummer was not apt at repartee. A thrust 
of ridicule dazed him, confused him. Marion began to 
spar with him on every occasion that she could get with 
an audience. She dubbed him Don Juan, for his love 
adventures, and gave him a scutcheon of a sun-heart 
throwing arrows instead of rays. When alone with him 
she often changed her tactics, and spoke with him 
frankly as man to man. Her aim was to madden him, 
to invite him, and then to throw him off with public 
cleverness. Instead of the tourney she took the bull- 

241 


fight for her model. She was the picadore, armed with 
cloak and javelins... her cloak was her femininity, the 
javelins, her wit. Then, in private, she would stall 
him and feed him, herself clad in homely keeper’s 
garb. She planned it all carefully and with forethought. 
She would write the scheme up in her next novel. Her 
effort should be made to serve two purposes. 

She planned frequent dances and dinners at the 
club. She proposed riding-parties, picnics, and moun- 
tain-climbing excursions. The Man was a famous 
swimmer... so was she; but she would wait before she 
invited him to swim. She would get him aggravated 
first to the state that she needed. Only when he had 
committed himself hopelessly, when she had him hu- 
miliated, in her power, would she lead him before Syl- 
via and them all, like a poodle in the leash... she pict- 
ured herself doing it. 

Mr. Morgan seemed to come to her assistance. 
Even the Misogynist took an interest in the game, but 
as a neutral. Perhaps they were a little jealous of his 
conquests. They would not grieve, she w r as certain, to 
see him thrown. As for the women, they w r ere willing 
to help her also; at least, they were willing to applaud. 
Cecily Blount lent good-humored aid on occasion, and 
Charlotte Gaylord was almost vicious in her joy. Leti- 
tia Swan was over-presumptuous in her horse-play, 
which threatened to turn the sympathy the other way. 
This was prevented by the Man’s hatred of the poetess. 
He w*as rude enough to her to lose the compassion that 
her onslaughts would otherwise have gained him. He 
242 


hated her voice; he hated her mannish swagger; ami 
gave evidence of his hatred both in public and in pri- 
vate. She was the only woman who ruffled his serenity 
But Letitia thought him captivated by her wit. As for 
Sylvia, she showed little interest in this campaign. She 
was accustomed to falling in the rear when Marion took 
command. The Midshipman watched her cautiously, 
took her cue from her. The Mate had won her affec- 
tion and support. 

There were two who befriended Mr. Plummer when 
they were present, and these were no mean allies for 
Marion to combat. They were, of course, Mrs. Duke 
and her daughter, and they furnished the harassed man 
a place of refuge. Fortunately for Marion, she could 
circumvent this assistance often, for when she made up 
the parties, she left them out. The slight was obvious, 
and directly felt. There rose a rancor that had the 
effect of almost developing a hostile camp. Again, for- 
tune favored Marion in the possession of more money. 
Mrs. Duke was deplorably poor, and could not afford 
giving public dinners, or hiring motors, and could on- 
ly attend such functions as a guest. Her little tea-par- 
ties and dances were snug and intimate, but Marion 
could forego them to advantage: Captain Cody could 
best shine in a crowd. She belonged to brilliant lights 
and sparkling crystals. These were approximated in 
day-time picnics by champagne, by loaded hampers, 
and an array of snowy linen. Mrs. Duke was not an 
adept at formal conversation, and even when present 
at these functions, did not shine. She talked mostly of 
£43 


herself, of her art, and the little personal gossip of* the 
group. But she was employing all her cunning for a 
stroke, and she could bide her time with composure, at 
least of countenance. .. Besides, she simply loved to 
drink champagne. 

Then she could keep up a little game of irritation 
befriending Sylvia, and bringing her and Joe together. 
She was good-hearted, sympathetic and tactful, and, 
above all things, liked to assist at a romance. Besides, 
she genuinely liked Sylvia as everybody did, and thought 
to do her a good turn by obstructing the influence of 
Marion. Sylvia, in return, came to look on the older 
woman as a confidante. It was good to talk with some 
one who believed in love instead of considering it as a 
grim devouring monster. 

And even at the larger formal picnics, Mrs. Duke 
could get in her little work of hatred and of love. It 
w r as easy to arrange escapades for the pair to get apart: 
some flow T ers to be sought, a picturesque dell to be vis- 
ited; and the other men could be played off against 
Marion with ingenious little suggestions and malicious 
changes. On one occasion she even contrived that Ma- 
rion should discover the pair in a canyon, but in a com- 
pany of men where she could not show her concern... 
At the moment, Joe was helping Sylvia over the stream 
and practically lifting her from one boulder to another. 
Mrs. Duke had the satisfaction of seeing a t urning red 
creep up into Marion’s face, and she knew that jealousy 
was raging within her. When Marion gave her a stab 
on the first opportunity, she received the thrust with a 
244 


genuine thrill of pleasure. Mr. Morgan, looked hurt, 
and the Misogynist somewhat startled, but Mrs. Duke 
preserved all the sweetness of even temper, and Marion 
realized that she had made a mistake in her outbreak. 

That night when she and Sylvia were alone in their 
hut, it was difficult for Marion to control her frenzy. 
She did not know that it was jealousy ; she thought it 
indignation that Sylvia should be betraying Charlotte. 
She advanced a mild objection in this vein, and Sylvia 
had been slightly contemptous of her sudden solicitude 
for Charlotte. Yes, Sylvia was getting away from her 
these days. She was not confiding as she had been in 
her previous love affairs. 

The Captain determined to employ her aids at this 
juncture, and began to make up to the. Chief Steward. 

- What do you think of Sylvia’s going’s on with 
this man, Plummer? she asked. bluntly of Letitia when 
she was in his room to look at some poems. 

- What do you know 7 ? the poetess had asked eager- 
ly, flattered at the confidence of such a friend. 

- Why, there is nothing to know* except what every 
body can seel Marion felt chagrin at her degradation 
for seeming to wish to gossip about her chum. 

- I don’t know... Letitia replied disappointed. 

- You mean that you do know something?... The 
Captain lost her guard at the point of gaining it. 

-I know 7 w 7 omen; and I know men... the Chief 
Steward gloomed with hidden significance. 

- All men are not alike; nor all women... General- 
ities w 7 ere in better taste, concluded Marion. 

245 


-Some men are worse than others, that is all; 
and none can be worse than this Don Juan, as you so 
appropriately dub him. 

- I should hate to see Sylvia make a bad marriage. 
In a way I feel responsible for her, like an elder sister. 

- You have good reason for concern, brooded the 
Chief Steward; but Joe Plummer does not intend mar- 
riage; I know him. 

-At least, that is a matter for congratulation... 
breathed the Captain. 

- Is it?... I am not so sure... with a trusting dear 
creature like Sylvia. I undei stand how you love her 
like a sister. She is more dear to me than any sister I 
could have. 

- You think, then, that her happiness is really in 
danger? 

- More than her happiness, was the grim response 
of Mrs. Swan. 

- I wish you would help me, confessed the Captain. 
I am thinking of taking Sylvia back to New York. 

- She might not go, the poetess replied brutally. 

- Of course, I would merely say I had to go. 

- And she might call your bluff and say she’d 
stay. She might like it even better if you went. 

- What do you think I should do, asked Marion 
humbly. I had thought I might get up a flirtation with 
him myself and so sicken her with his pretensions. Of 
course, you know that I thoroughly detest him. 

- He can make himself very agreable when be 
wants to. I wish I could stick a knife in his back. 

246 


- You don’t think any of the girls here misunder- 
stand my motives in making up to him, do you? 

- Women are all suspicious, said Letitia drily, 

- I would not humiliate myself if I thought they 
didn’t understand. Still I would do anything to save 
Sylvia. 

* Tf you want to get him you will have to go pret- 
ty far. He’s no fool either and he can guess what you 
are driving at. The thing you can count on, however, 
is his inability to deny himself anything. And he 
would score a victory to show you lying at his feet. 

- It is my plan to turn the tables on that proposi- 
tion. 

- Well, I will keep watch and I will do what I can. 
I might plan a daring stroke on my own account. As 
you say, it is anything to help dear Sylvia. 

Marion reddened with shame as she put the next 
question, was it treachery to her friend or humilia- 
tion to her pride? 

- Has Sylvia given you any inkling as to the state 
of her feelings? she asked. 

- She frankly admits that she likes him. She finds 
him satisfying is the way she mostly puts it. 

- The other two made her miserably dissatisfied. 

- Oh! he’s oily as a priest, groaned the Chief 
Steward. 

- I wish we could stir up Charlotte against this. 

- If she gets stirred up there’ll be a thunder storm, 
said Letitia. And this calm may be the brooding before 
a tempest. 


- What I can’t forgive Sylvia for is that she is 
false to Charlotte and I think she genuinely sympa- 
thizes with her and is fond of her. 

- There is no such thing as honor among women, 
or fidelity when a man is in the case. 

- That is something that we always say of men. 

- With women it’s more true than with men. A 
woman’s tactics are all built upon falseness. That’s 
forced on her by the abominable custom of the man’s 
making the proposal for marriage or love. 

- I hate a woman who makes it all the same. 

- Then don’t blame a woman for being false and 
being sly. If we could fight openly like the males it 
might be different. 

- Whatever the reason is, I’m worried about Syl- 
via. 

- Well, l‘ll keep watch, and I’ll talk among the 
others, and I’ll let them understand why you’re giving 
him so much attention, 

- Don’t say that I told you, exclaimed Marion 
perturbed. 

- Depend on me. I have the frankness of a man, 
when it’s necessary, but I also have the cunning of a 
woman. 

Marion patted her on the cheek and said good bye. 
But she was ashamed that she had spoken so freely with 
the Chief Steward. 


248 


- Perhaps some help could be obtained from the 
Midshipman. It would at least he a satisfaction to know 
where she stood. 

- I thought you were such a champion of Char- 
lotte, she said one day banteringly when they were 
walking on a path dubbed the tail- rail, so narrow that 
it required their going single file, the Midshipman skip- 
ing on ahead. 

- Who is Charlotte’s enemy? I will challenge him. 

- It seems to me the Mate is running away with 
her sweetheart. 

- Mr. Plummer is everyhpdy's sweetheart, isn’t he? 
I’d have to fight the whole ship myself included. 

- I thought you had decided on the Misogynist. 

- That for a husband. Sweethearts are different. 
I shall marry the Misogynist. I am engaged to John. 
But my sweetheart is Joe and I’m his Annie. 

- Aren’t you jealous of me then, in this new role 
of Annie? 

- There is nothing to be gained by jealousy, an- 
nounced the Midshipman turning solemnly around. 
I am taking lessons from Mr. Quinn on modern Mor- 
monism. I’m substituting polyandry these days for po- 
lygamy, as being more adapted to the excess of females 
in society. 

- But polygamy applies to marriage not to sweet- 
hearts. You surely don’t want us all to marry Mr. 
Plummer? 

- Nobody must marry him, said the Midshipman 
still gravely. For that reason I am founding the poly- 
243 


androus movement, for the protection of decayed fe- 
males. Are we decayed? 

- Don’t you think decadent would be a better word? 

- Decadent is what we should be, but are not. But 
I dodge that word because I can’t say it in French. 

- Since we can’t be decadent, don’t you think it’s 
dangerous of us to try? 

- Danger has its sweetness, mused the Midshipman. 

- Which is in no way counterbalanced by the bit- 
terness which follows, replied the Captain. 

- What’s in the future we don’t feel. I stick to the 
present, Sir, for the present. 

But surely Charlotte is getting little sweetness out 
of the present. 

What more would she get, if Sylvia should cast 
off? Perhaps a tornado will dry up the dew. 

We usually depend on the sun for that office. 

Charlotte always comes around, a cloud, for that 
event. 

Really you are incorrigible concluded the Captain. 
But tell me are they all talking because I am flirting 
with the Sun? 

I suppose people always talk whether there is flirt- 
ing or not. The best thing to do is flirt and justify the 
talking, don’t you think? 

Flirting at my age is more serious than at your’s. 

I had thought it less serious. You alarm me. 

At least it may prove serious for Sylvia. 

Pray that it does, replied the Midshipman calmly, 
There is so little of the serious in our lives. 

25<0 


- Mrs. Duke is a bad influence for you Beatrice. 

- You do not accuse Mrs. Duke cf influencing one to 
seriousness surely? 

- The most serious thing of all, is not to be serious. 

-Then I take it that Sylvia is safe. And the.Mid- 

shipman had the best of the argument. 

With the Purser, the Captain hoped to come out 
better. It is easier to make treaties with an enemy than 
with a friend. 

- Isn’t there some way we can show up the fickleness 
of this man Plummer? Marion began abrnptly with 
Cecily at the end of the first opportunity she could .find 
w r heu they were alone together. They were waiting in 
the music room for the tea hour and hat] gone through 
all the subjects of art. 

- Show him up? asked Cecily open-eyed. 

- I mean to Sylvia Howard. She is actually becom- 
ing fascinated by him. Of course, a. flirtation is all 
very well, but Sylvia is such a trusting sensitive crea- 
ture. You and I are case-hardened and safe. 

- Don’t you think the friendship for Charlotte is 
the safest way? Cecily looked serious for a moment. 

- Charlotte seems to have retired into the sulks. I 
believe Sylvia, in the goodness of her heart, is really 
in the thing to help Charlotte. 

- Then she will hardly need our help. 

- The trouble w r ith Sylvia is, she will get Jnto deep 
water without realizing it. I want to save her feelings 
if I can. 

- Feelings are what we are after in this world, 

2Y1 


don’t you think? I think our main trouble is we don’t 
have feelings enough. 

- I’m sure we all get our share of chagrin. 

- For my part, I will say that I have suffered more 
chagrin frotn not having experienced feelings than from 
the most disagreeable when experienced. 

- But you and I are different from Sylvia. What 
inspires us to growth, merely blights her. 

- I am not so sure that she is not superior to us 
all. She has a poise that I envy. I do, honestly. If 
poor Charlotte bad a tenth as much, she would not be 
making such a spectacle of herself. 

- You don’t know Sylvia. She keeps up a calm 
exterior, but in her heart, she may break. 

- I don’t know what we can do. Any kind of a 
frame-up seems unworthy of her. 

Marion found she was suddenly liking Cecily Blount. 

- You are a damned fine fellow! she exclaimed im- 
pulsively. 

- Cecily became awkwardly modest. 

- I am not a fine fellow, she said dewily, but to- 
ward Sylvia, one ean’t be anything else. 

- Do you think him dangerous? asked Marion, 
bluntly. 

- If you mean by ‘dangerous’, taking advantage of 
another’s weakness, I don’t think he is. replied Cecily. 

I think he respects other people’s standards, though 
they may not be standards of his own. 

- Has he any standards? carped Marion. 

- I think we might call it a very high standard... 


Yen see, ] am a 


that of respecting other people’s, 
champion of Mr. Plummer. 

- But other people’s standards may be false. 

- That is for them to find out, he would say. After 
all, they may be true for those who have them. 

- Such sophistry will undermine all the founda- 
tions of society. The Captain began pacing up and down 

- It might be a good thing to have them under- 
mined. For myself, I am willing to play Guy Fawkes, 
and carry the powder and lay the train. 

- Well, I stand for the House of Parliament and 
the Government, And so does Letitia; and I think 
Charlotte does, if she stands for anything. Beatrice 
Knox is under the thumb of Mrs. Duke. But I did 
think we could rely on you for concerted action. 

- We can’t cut him, because we don’t entertain. 
I don’t see how we can do anything together, 

- Flirt with him abominably, retorted the Captain. 

- That we are doing separately, laughed the Purser. 


The Chief Engineer was the only recourse left. This 
time it was Charlotte who came to the hut one morn- 
ing when Sylvia was at the studio for her portrait. 

- I interrupt?., she hesitated apologetically. 

Marion threw down her manuscript... 

- I’m glad you came. My work is rotten. I can’t 
work while Sylvia is with that man. 

- I should think it would be a good time when you 

253 


are here alone. 

- Can you work when you are alone? 

- I used to, But I can’t work anymore someway. 
The painting of pictures that nobody wants seem so fu- 
tile. 

- I think some of your sketches are lovely. 

- Oh yes, people think they are lovely, but sketch- 
es, you know, don’t make a picture. I muddle every- 
thing when I try to carry it through into something 
big. The men seem to have the advantage of us in 
that. How is Sylvia’s portrait getting on? 

- She says it is wonderful, but she may be preju- 
diced . 

- She’s probably right. Joe can get an effect he 
wants. He has a reserve strength, an endurance. And 
then he doesn’t let his dreams run aw T ay with him. He 
is able to resist the temptation of doing the things he 
ought not to do. 

- And meanwhile he allows Sylvia to fall in love 
with him. And when he’s painted her, he will throw 
her aside like a squeezed lemon. 

- He never painted me, said Charlotte fiercely. 

-Don’t let him; till you are married to him, 

raged Marion. Then don’t let him paint anyone else. 

- What would we live on? laughed Charlotte. 

- Let him paint decorations, figure pieces. Other 
artists have painted their wives over and over. 

- If he painted me once he would lose interest. 

- Well, I think such a nature is disgusting. But he 
will always find more women to make fools of. 

254 


- 1 don’t think he is making a fool of Sylvia. 

- He is making one of me. I admit it, only to you, 
mind. This confidence must go no further. As I say, 

I can’t write when she’s down there. I didn’t think I 
was capable of jealousy. But I must own to that des- 
picable weakness. I’m not jealous of him, understand, 
but of her, I am tormentedly jealous. 

- She’ll come back in time, comforted Charlotte. 

- I want her to come back now, said the Captain. 
I’m jealous because she ever went away. I suppose he’s 
very attractive making love. 

- He’s attractive whether he is making love or not. 

I suppose in a way he’s always making love. 

- Let him make love to Mrs. Duke. I won’t have 
it with Sylvia. She’s too delicate. I know how she is. 
She’ll he broken. And all for a damned picture he 
steals from her. 

- They say a flower loves to be broken. 

- Oh, poppycock! A flower is meant to bear seed. 

- He may marry her. He’ll probably marry some- 
time. 

- Sylvia knows he’s going to marry you. Why don’t 
you go down there this minute? Make a scene. All 
men are afraid of scenes. They’re all cowards. 

- We’ve never been engaged. Not by words. 

- Looks and actions are more than words, in such 
cases. 

- I suppose he’s looked at a hundred girls the way 
he has at me. 

- And he’ll fall a prey to the one that boldly cap- 


tures him. Once trapped, he’ll prove tame as a house- 
cat. 

- I shouldn’t wonder if he grew perfectly stodgy in 
marriage. His genius is more an exuberance of youth, 
rather than a life-long creative hunger. 

- What do you care if he is stodgy? A husband 
ought to be. He can always earn a living. He’s not 
lazy. 

- I’d like to see the portrait of Sylvia. He will nev- 
er show a picture till it’s finished. 

- Let’s go down there now and simply look at it. 
It’s my right as Sylvia’s friend, as her chaperone. 

-He’d coolly shut the door in our faces. It’s an 
artist’s right to say that he is busy. 

r. But she’s posing in the garden... he couldn't. 

- The »uter gate is undoubtedly locked. 

- But I’ve heard Sylvia say people come and go, 
Carlos and the gardener, and even Miss Blount. 

- Does she go into his studio? 

- Makes herself very much at home there, Sylvia 
says, though she never comes into the garden. 

- I thought the garden came first. 

- That’s the court-yard and the flower beds only. 
Sylvia’s posing under an olive tree in the orchard be- 
yond. It’s strange he never invites you to his studio. 

- We began by prohibiting the men. I suppose he 
wishes to retaliate. 

- So he takes us one at a time. He’ll never get me 
in there alone. I’ll tell him that. 

- I’d like to see the orchard. It must be pretty. 


2 ob 


- Let's go down there now, and say we came to see 
the picture. Come on. I'll dare you to do it. 

A look of challenge came into Charlotte’s eyes. All 
right, come on, she said calmly. 

They started at once down the steps to the lower 
terrace... bedded stones, over-run with sweet alyssum. 
They kept up an artificial conversation with smart ban- 
ter and remarks of things they passed. Their laughter 
was somewhat gayer than usual. 

- If he tries to close the gate, we’ll push in. I’d 
like to see him try to shut me out. 

The iron gate was closed, but not latched. 

- We won’t ring the bell, said the doughty Cap* 
tain, and led the way to the court-yard. 

- That path probably leads to the orchard. The 
Engineer could not keep her voice from trembling. 
How pretty the fountain is! Look Marion! 

But Marion was walking up the path that led to 
the right above and past the cottage. 

- This must be the way, she called back loudly. 
Sylvia said they were in the orchard on the hill slope. 

The Engineer hastened now to join the Captain. It 
should not be said of her that she was lacking in cour- 
age. 

- Why, there is no one here! they both exclaimed 
looking around. There’s a little girl seated in the ol- 
ive tree. 

It was the gardener’s daughter, Ingebord, who 
came to meet them, as one proudly doing the hospital- 
ity of the house. 

3S7 


- If you are looking for Don Pepe, she said grave- 
ly, he has gone with Miss Sylvia to seek mariposa lilies. 

- I thought he was painting her portrait. Miss 
Gaylord and I came to see it. 

- The light is poor, replied Ingeborg gravely. 

- Why, the sun is shining! One day is like another 
in California. 

- And the mariposa lilies don’t bloom till summer, 
and tnis is only March, objected Charlotte. 

- Don Pepe is going to show’ Miss Sylvia the young 
plants, replied Ingeborg. Will the ladies come into the 
house and be pleased to rest? 

- Thank you. Just say we called to see the por- 
trait. We will come again: Miss Cody and Miss Gay- 
lord. And the gracious ladies went down the path and 
through the court-yard, but outside the gate their 
graciousness disappeared. 


The long distance swim out into the ocean was definite- 
ly planned. Although it had been talked over at a 
dinner party, the challenge given and accepted in pub- 
lic, the time and place had been arranged in private, 
and the two met alone on the sandy beach in a lonely 
spot under the cliff, where each could find a retired 
place for dressing. The terms were, they were to swim 
out a mile, to the kelp beds, from which each w 7 as to 
pluck a pod: It was not to be a race but an excursion. 
One that they could talk about afterwards in triumph. 
258 


Although Marion was herself dressed in a profes- 
sional swimmer’s suit, she was somewhat startled at 
the scantiness of her companion’s. Mr. Plummer came 
out to meet her in a single garment of crimson jersey 
that fitted his body like a stocking and gave full expos- 
ure to his sinewy arms and legs. He was handsome, 
she admitted that more than ever, there was a sugges- 
tion of southern seas about him some way, of brown 
people who wore no clothes whatever, and who lived 
half their lives in the water. Her own suit was black 
with a short skirt for modesty; her hair was braided 
and left hanging in two long strands, also her head and 
feet were bare. 

They waded out silently almost seriously till they 
were waist deep in the smooth water, and then laid 
their breasts and cheeks against the tide. With long 
even strokes they took the pace, their eyes fixed on the 
horizon of the sea. 

There is probably nothing more soothing and at 
the same time more exhilarating than to give one’s self 
absolutely into the sea, to float in the long depressions 
of the wave’s trough, and to swim lustily as one mounts 
gently on the swell, with nothing in sight ahead but 
the blue distance, with the trouble of land behind 
quite forgotten; Marion found she w r as taking comfort 
in the presence of her companion. He w^as so capable, 
so much at ease, so protecting: she had never felt the 
same toward any man. 

- If life were only this, she said once to him... and 
his silence was more eloquent than any answer. 

259 


He insisted on her resting at frequent intervals 
and they turned on their hacks and floated in the sus- 
taining bouyancy, with slight ripples washing their 
cheeks and their forehead, their gaze fixed on the slow 
retreating land. Marion was for taking the distance 
briskly, and sometimes he had yielded to her way. 
They reached the kelp beds in due time and plucked 
their bubble-like pods from the dark purple serpent- 
like frond and stem, and then the girl found sudden- 
ly she was weary and began longing intently to be 
back on the land. 

- How stupid we were not to have them follow us 
with a boat, she said. If we went down or got tangled 
in this sea weed it "would be terrible. 

They started back and she tried to swim faster, but 
he cautioned her to save her strength and go slowly. As 
often as he could he persuaded her to turn and rest, but 
when on her back now she refused to look seaward and 
swim gently as he advised. She insisted on keeping her 
face to the land. She had not realized that the white 
cliffs could seem so dear to her. She had never loved 
heaven so much as now she loved the earth. In her 
heart she knew that she was failing, but she laughed 
and kept up some glitter of her courage. The Man swam 
closer to her now than he had done going out, breast to 
breast, never ahead, a little behind if anything. He 
spoke sometimes in reassuring even voice and told her 
of previous adventures much more hazardous, where he 
had always come safely into land. 

She never knew what it was that caused panic to 
2 GO 


seize her, whether it was some sea water she had swal- 
lowed or some fish or bit of kelp had caught her foot. 
For a long time a dragging sense of fate had been cling- 
ing to her limbs. They would not function, they were 
paralysed with fear. She caught his glance once as he 
was observing her, there was a look of concern of ten- 
derness in his eyes. She lost all control, she became 
hysterical, leaped to him and flung both arms around 
his neck. She felt their bodies going down together, she 
had twined her legs around his own in her wild panic 
then suddenly she saw fire among the bubbles and had 
a distinct peace, that this at last was death. 

It was not, however. He had struck her, he had 
loosened her hold and dragged her to the surface. When 
she came back to consciousness she was lying on her 
back and being towed head first through the water. Be- 
neath her shoulders she felt his own shoulders sweeping 
strongly. Beneath her knees and feet the water was 
swirling rhythmically. 

Not until he was standing on the bottom, chin 
deep still in the gulfing water, did she realize that he 
had been towing her by her hair; he had knotted the 
braids together with the ribbon and thrown the loop 
over his head, taking their cable in his teeth. It was 
some time before he could persuade her to let down her 
feet in the water. She began to cry... he was quite bru- 
tal about it. 

On the beach, a strange perverseness seized her, 
and she hated the man who had so courageously saved 
her. He was not much to admire for any woman as he 
2*1 


lay panting and gasping on the sand, coughing, spitting, 
altogether quite a wreck... disgusting. She knew she 
ought to pity him. She hated herself, and once even 
thought to drown herself, and had actually started o 
wading into the sea. 

Then he had risen up with masculine authority, 
and taken her hand and actually dragged her to the re- 
cess in the cliff where she had left her clothes and her 
towels. There he commanded her sternly to dress, and 
when she only sank down and began to sob and shiver, 
he had taken off her swimming-suit as if she had been 
a baby, he had rubbed her into a glow with the towels, 
and even helped her in putting on her garments, scold- 
ing her as a father does a stubborn child. Once clad 
to his satisfaction, he had led her to his dressing-place, 
and bade her stand there until he was dressed as well. 
Then, once more he hart taken her by the hand. 

It was Mrs. Duke and the Misogynist who met 
them. The two were out for a stroll along the beach. 

- Why! has anything happened? gasped the woman. 

And Marion had quite regained her self-command. 

- We went for our little swim out to the kelp beds, 
and I got my pod. But on the way back, I fainted, or 
something... made a fool of myself, I think... ask Don 
Juan; but now Pm all right, and fit as a fiddle. Is it 
true, Mr. Quinn, that I still look pale? 


262 


CHAPTER IX 


The Mermaid 


Mrs. Duke had been giving a beach party to present 
her niece from Hawaii. The officers of the Morganatic 
were discussing her. 

- A slimy, slippery eel! pronounced the Captain. 
What the men see in her, I can’t imagine. 

- And they were all of them actually fawning on 
her, chimed in the Chief Steward. When men set out 
to be fools, they beat us women, 

- They have a unity cf purpose that is positively 
delightful, laughed the Purser. 

- Her name is pretty, mused the Mate... Ada Tre- 
valion . 

- Sounds like a novel, remarked the Midshipman. 

- My dear, corrected the Captain with authority, 
good novels do not contain any such names. Chamber- 
maid literature, perhaps. 

- How does she have Trevalion for a name, and be 


264 


a daughter of Mrs. Duke’s brother when her maiden 
name was Dougherty? asked the Chief Engineer sarcas- 
tically. 

- A half brother by a first marriage. Mrs. Duke 
is a child of the second. 

- Men in her family die young, remarked the Cap- 
tain. I’ll bet her mother, I mean this girl’s, had a yel- 
low streak. Did you notice how her eyes set in, like a 
Chinaman’s? 

- And she wriggles when she talks, observed the 
Purser,. 

- All girls wriggle when they’re green, explained 
the Captain. Even I wriggled when I was sixteen... 
think of that. 

- She is twenty three if she’s a clay, pronounced 
the Chief Steward. 

- Nineteen, corrected the Midshipman. 

- And eyes like a china doll, and a shapeless mouth 
which she keeps working so people won’t see its weak- 
ness, said the Chief Engineer. 

- Did you remark her complexion?... actually a 
greenish tinge; but pretty skin, soft and sensitive as a 
...jelly-fish, completed the Captain. Matey, speak the 
truth, and prove yourself a cat like the rest of us. 

- I consider her a dangerous creature. It was the 
Doctor who set forth this statement in the silence 
brought on by their reflection. 

- How do you mean? flashed the Captain. 

- There is something not quite human about her. 
She lacks control. 

265 


- Lilith!... announced Charlotte. Joe has long 
been seeking a model for Lilith. 

- If he paints this one, he’ll have to put Mr. Mor- 
gan and Mr. Quinn in the background. Beatrice, you’d 
better clinch with John; you’ll never hold him other- 
wise, warned the Captain. 

- Really, I believe Tessie is a little worried about 
Ben. The period of their engagement is up in a week, 
and I can see she is keen to extend it. 

- And he raving about that gesture of brushing 
back her hair! exclaimed the Chief Steward. He said 
she was like a mermaid without her comb. 

- That’s it! Why didn’t one of us think of it?... 
The Mermaid! No: I stick to it, an eel would be better. 


The discussion was continued in the state-rooms where 
more personal and private criticism could be enjoyed.. 

- I believe that Duke woman has had her shipped 
in on purpose to confound us. I don’t believe she’s her 
niece any more than I am... the Captain was saying to 
Sylvia. 

- How should she confound us, even if she wished 
to?... inquired Sylvia, looking languidly up from the 
window. 

- By getting the men, of course. Don’t be hypo- 
critical. You like men’s attention as much as I do. 

- The Misogynist was very attentive to me last night . 

- Oh, damn the Misogynist: I mean Don Juan. 

2<iC> 


But what did the Misogynist talk about, Matey? I’ll 
wager he was raving about the Mermaid. 

- He did think she was fascinatingly beautiful. He 
called her a naiad of the waves. 

- I knew it! A silly chit with wet eyes and mouth, 
and the men all crazy about her! 

- Mr. Plummer seemed especially struck. 

- It was disgusting the way all of them followed 
her! I’d like to wring Joe Plummer’s neck for him. 

- Why Cody ! What is he to you? 

- Well, he’s made a fool of me, as he has of all 
the rest. Did he ever tell you about that swimming 
scare? 

- Not a word. He never tells things about other 
people. 

- Matey, you haven’t lost a little bit of your heart 
to that man, have you? 

- There wasn’t very much of it left; was there, 
Cody? 

- I suppose it’s easier to lose a remnant than the 
whole bolt. 

- I really like Mr. Plummer very much. 

- Better than either of the others? Perform an 
autopsy. 

- Better than both. But I don’t think of marrying 
him. 

- Then I’ll marry him, just to hold an option, in 
case, later on, you change your mind. I’ll give you a 
divorce when you want him. 

- You seem to me to have changed, Cody, a little. 

267 


- That school-girl is driving me mad. Did you see 
how she gurgled up into his face?... and he hanging 
over her as if he would swallow her? I swear, his 
mouth was fairly watering, 

- I was talking to Mr. Quinn and Mr. Morgan. 

- Oh, come, Matey, you’re getting to be a regular 
woman! You know you looked at him as much as I did. 

- I thought you were flirting with the boys. 

- I’m glad I carried it off so well. I was watching 
them all the time. Matey, darling, I’m in earnest 
when I say I mean to marry him. Can’t you take me 
seriously, just for once? 

- I didn’t suppose you cared for him in that way, 
said Sylvia dryly. 

- I don’t know as I do, in that way, but I do know 
that I am going to marry him. They say if a woman 
makes a dead set for a man, she always gets him. I am 
certainly going to make a dead set for Joe Plummer. 

- How about your theory of a stupid man for a 
husband? 

- He’ll be stupid when he’s domesticated. I can 
see him now staying home with the brats while I 
go out to the opera with another man. 

- He’s very fond of children, mused Sylvia. 

- He’s got to marry me. He's simply got to. I 
shall manage it. But first, I must call off that Irene 
Duke. 

- She can’t marry him, Cody. 

- She doesn’t want to. She merely wants to cir- 
cumvent my plans. She’s capable of introducing a 


thousand nieces. 

- Like the female organism of the malaria germ... 
The Doctor was telling me about it yesterday. 

- What do you make of the Doctor? 

- I find her microscope fascinating. 

- I mean with Don Juan. Did you notice, last 
night, how she looked at him intently?... and then, 
saying at lunch that that girl was dangerous? 

- Really, Cody, aren’t you getting a little bit ob- 
sessed with your Don Juan? 

- I mean to have him obsessed with me. A fair 
field and no favor, Matey; T’m after him. 

- As free a field on my part as you like. I think 
my romance ended with the portrait. 

- He likes you better than any... but we all do... 
Besides, a man never marries the woman that he likes 
best. I mean to marry him because he’s a brute. I re- 
alize now I need a brute for a husband. 

- You will be able to handle a husband as well as 

any. 

- First catch your bear, then the rest is easy. 1 
must find some way to slaughter Mrs. Duke. 


Foreign enemies bring domestic ones together. Letitia 
and Cecilia Blount who for some weeks had been quite 
distant with each other returned now to a more vivid 
friendship than that they had experiencied even in the 
most ardent period. Beatrice spent much of her time 
2 C>9 


at the Duke’s and thus the hut was left free for their 
intimacies. 

Letitia came in breathless one morning while Cic- 
ely was still in her dreams... 

- They’re talking now of a camping trip across 
the mountains. They’ll take tents and stay for a week. 

- Who will go? asked Cecily rousing. 

- The young ones, as they call themselves, and Mr. 
Plummer, and Mrs. Duke will go as chaperone... She! 

- So he is taking up with the young ones! 

- If Mrs. Duke comes under that category. 

- Depend upon it, he’s not going for her. He’s 
fairly smitten with that Ada Trevalion. 

- It seems he has friends over there among the 
farmers. None of the rich people go there; even board- 
ers are unknown. Mrs. Duke is gushing now about the 
native Californian, the rural life, the charm of simple 
homesteads. Also there is fishing and swimming in a 
stream. The men will sketch, the women cook... quite 
Arcadian. 

- Ada Trevalion cook ! 

- Both Beatrice and Tessie are good cooks; and 
Mrs. Duke is a practical provider. I’ll say that for her. 

- And now’ he’s running aw T ay from Sylvia, too! 

- I imagine he’s running away from Marion more 
than Sylvia. The Captain is a great champion of the 
Mate. 

- There is always complication when a champion 
is of the same sex as the one championed. 

- But he is not so much running away from some- 


270 


one, as running after that Ada Trevalion. 

- I can’t see what he finds in her that’s interesting. 
She’s not beautiful, she’s not intellectual, she’s not 
experienced. 

- Perhaps that’s it. Men like the ignorant ones. 

- He doesn’t. 

- Well, she may he slyer than she seems. 

- She’s a witch. Even the Doctor says she’s not 
human. 

- I wonder Mr. Morgan and Mr. Quiun don’t join 
the young ones. 

- Maybe they’ll ride over afterwards and visit them. 
Is it far to the place they are going? 

- A two days trip with the carriage. The riders will 
do it in a day. 

- Who rides?... Ada Trevalion? 

- She is learning. You can guess who is her teacher. 
The Doctor says he led a horse this morning from the 
stables. 

- What does her father do in Hawaii? 

- What does anybody do in Hawaii?... sits on his 
hunkers and eats cocoanuts, I suppose. 

- Mrs. Duke said something about a missionary. 

- I never heard of any missions in Hawaii. 

- Does she talk of going back there? Has she just 
come from there? 

- She doesn’t talk to me about her doings. I half 
suspect she’s never been tfurher away from here than 
San Francisco. She looks like the White Queen of Chi- 
natown. 

271 


- Can it be possible that she is an impostor? 

- Hawaii wouldn’t be a very big imposition. I sup- 
pose people are born there, the same as other places. 

- I heard her telling Mr. Quinn about Mauna Loa. 
Have you noticed how she twists her back when she 
talks to a man taller than she is? 

- All men are taller, aren’t they? She’s a little 
thing. Not as tall as I am. 

- She dresses to make herself look tall. 

- Stands on her toes like a child. 

- High heels aren’t suited to her style. 

- I wouldn’t call it style, but lack of style. 

- That’s what she affects. She’s no fool. I wish I 
was as slender as she is. 

- Your body is queenly beside her. 

- But the men are all raving about her page cos- 
tume. Mr. Plummer said she was a perfect Watteau. 

- A Watteau in a camping party will be a great 
success. How will she look in overalls is the questson? 

- I think it’s the best thing that can happen. He’ll 
get his surfeit. 

- Poor Charlotte will cry her eyes out if they go. 

- Who told you they were planning this expedition? 

- I overheard and then I asked Ben. I went down 
on purpose when he was painting. 

- You’re a martyr to go down in this heat. Did you 
do it for your Cecily, while she was sleeping? 


The Chief Steward sought an interview with the Cap- 
tain, at least Marion would be grateful for this news. 

- Sylvia will be safe for a week at least, Letitia con- 
cluded, and who knows, perhaps Mr. Plummer will 
become so infatuated with the Mermaid that he will 
forget the Mate altogether. 

But the Captain took a stormy view of the excur- 
sion and in quite seaworthy language. It would not do 
to- have the Man forget Sylvia. It was Sylvia who must 
be made to forget the Man, or rather to be disgusted 
with his general fickleness and blarnej\ 

- But it was your idea to have everybody flirt with 
him and that is what thisTrivalion girl is doing so suc- 
cessfully. 

- Is it flirting, roared the Captain. Instead of flirt- 
ing, it is going for him in earnest. Depend upon it, she 
will marry him in a minute and then Sylvia will be in 
the humiliating position of being jilted. 

- What can we do? asked the Steward. 

- If possible we must break this plan up, before it 
is settled. I wish that damned girl would fall off her 
horse and break her neck, but there’s not much hope 
of it while he is with her. It’s the Duke woman that’s 
arranging it all. If she can’t marry him she’ll get him 
for her niece. You use your influence with the Mid- 
shipman. This Trevalion seems shady company, you’d 
better warn her I’ll see what I can do with Mr. Mor- 
gan. We might work up a counter excursion. Perhaps 
a yachting expedition to the islands. Though I’m ter- 
ribly sea sick on a yacht all the time. 


- How would an automobile party down the coast 

be? 

- The Man doesn’t like touring and would refuse. 
It would leave him free to run off camping with those 
children. If worst comes to worst we might visit them 
in their camp, Probably the Trevalion will get sick on 
fried potatoes and in that case we can bring her back 
with us. 

- And leave Sylvia in her place? suggested the Stew- 
ard. 

- By no means. I would not think of exposing her 
further. No: if anyone stays, I will be the one. I’d like 
to have it out with that Duke woman. I hate camp- 
ing and roughing it as I hate yachting, but I’d bring 
that Man back dragging at my chariot wheels, and the 
game would be worth the candle. 

- The Morganatic would founder without her Cap- 
tain. I like camping and wouldn't be missed. And then 
the Mermaid might not get sick on fried potatoes. In 
that case leave the staying there to me. 

- They wouldn’t ask you. 

- I’d trump up some excuse, a sick headache. Mo- 
toring makes some people ill. 

- All the same I should like to meet that Duke 
with her own weapons. And I’d pitch that niece over- 
board the first day. 

- He seems awfully smitten, sighed Letitia. 

- She has no brains. He will tire of her the second 
day out. 

- Why not let them go off then, and we stay qui- 


•274 


etlv here with onr writing. 

- It’s the Duke. Don’t you see it’s the Duke. 

- I’ll see the Midshipman, but she is off for the 
day. Maybe Charlotte could suggest something. She 
ought to know about it. 

- All Charlotte has to offer is sighs and tears. 
What we need is a man of action. I’ll see to it. Like 
Zola, I will make this my affair. 

- You’re perfectly wonderful, admired the Chief 
Steward. You can do anything. Well, call on me. I’ll 
do anything I can. But I do think I ought to tell 
Charlotte. 

The Captain was left alone with her thoughts 
which were truly in a violent state of perturbation. 


Charlotte Gaylord received the news with some con- 
tempt. 

- Let him play with the children, she said scorn- 
fully. After all I think it’s where he belongs. 

- The Captain doesn’t agree with you, pursed the 
Steward. 

Here Charlotte broke out with some show of emo- 
tion. 

- What business is it of the Captain’s what they do? 

- She thinks it’s a direct insult to Sylvia. 

- Can’t Sylvia take care of herself? After all he has 
only painted her portrait. If an artist is bound to ev- 
ery one of his sitters for life, there’s little getting on in 


his career of portraiture, isn’t there? 

- Probably now he’ll be painting the Trevalion girl. 

- Why shouldn’t he? She has a flabby mouth, but 
maybe he can conceal that in the shadow. As a nude, 
she’d make a very good model. I’d like to have a try 
at her myself. 

- Really, Charlotte, you are the most inconsistent 
person I ever knew. Even the Doctor thinks she a dan- 
gerous person. 

- Dangerous to whom, pray? to the Captain or to 
the Purser? Do you think she is going to wreck our 
ship? 

- I am sure the Captain is thinking of you in this 
matter. 

- I thought you said she was thinking of Sylvia. 
One would think she was the Old Woman who lived in 
a shoe. Isn’t she also trying to protect you from Joe 
Plummer? 

- I think you are insulting. You know he hates 
me. You know I love him. Mrs. Swan began to weep. 

- What?... You, too? Dear Letitia, forgive me. I 
really had no idea... There... Forgive me. 

The poetess burst into a torrent of sobs... 

- I am so hideous and harsh and old and ugly. 
But 1 am a woman. I am a woman like the rest. 

- There... there, don’t cry. 1 had no idea... 

- He hates me!.. The Chief Steward’s voice broke 
into a scream. He hates me, and he likes all the others. 

- I don’t think he hates yon, comforted Charlotte; 
And then she decided to stretch the truth a little fur- 
270 


ther... In fact, I am sure he rather likes you. He has 
agreed that you have admirable qualities. 

- Has he talked to you about me? asked Letitia, 
her eyes suddenly taking on a look of pleasure, and a 
tremulous sweetness shaping her lips till they were 
beautiful. Tell me what he said. Did he begin it? Oh, 
it is so beautiful to be loved ! 

- Why, not exactly that, dear, soothed Charlotte, 
who was becoming somewhat alarmed at this new or- 
der. Of course, we’ve talked about you and he has spo- 
ken of your good qualities. But as for love, I don’t be- 
lieve he loves anybody unless it’s himself. I don’t see 
really why we should all be so crazy about him. He’s 
much more selfish than either Mr. Quinn or Mr. Mor- 
gan. Even Ben and John are more unselfish. 

- That’s the Man of it. The real man is selfish, 
Woman is a thing for him to trample on and desert. 

- And you think women love those qualities in a 
man? 

- They don’t love the qualities; they hate them. 
But they hate more a man who doesn’t have them. 

- You know more about men than I do, Letitia. 
More than 1 have any desire to know at present. 

- You really mean, you don’t want him any longer? 

- I*m not sure that I ever did want him the w r ay 
you mean. I confess I have not wanted him to like otb 
er women. 

- But, now, would you be willing to speak for me? 
I don’t mean marriage. I should be content with a day- 

- Why, Letitia, you don’t know what you are say- 

277 


ing. You’re beside yourself, dear. You’ll regret this. 

- I’ll not regret anything if I can have him, urged 
the Steward. Oh, you think I have no passion, except 
for women, but I’d sell my soul to the devil to have a 
man. I would. I mean what I say, truly. I am not 
normal. I’m a monster, I know it; but I have nor- 
mal moments, I really do. If I’d had a happy mar- 
riage at the first, I think I’d have been different, I 
don’t know. But there’s something wrong about mar- 
riage as it is now, this joining of two people who are 
strangers... who don’t know each other. How can any 
woman know what she has not tried?., the very act of 
mating makes everything different. A woman is not a 
woman until she mates with a man, she is a girl, and 
what does a girl know of womanhood? On, I have been 
unhappy all my life, Charlotte, and it was because I 
made one mistake. I didn’t make it. Society has made 
the mistake by the establishment of these customs, and 
now it blames me because I have been broken by them. 
Have pity on me, Charlotte, have pity!., tell him that 
I am not what I seem. 

ft seemed strange to the Engineer that she should 
be the comforter, but she fulfilled the duty as best she 
could, and in doing so found comfort for herself. 


The camping party had departed with great hubbub... 
perhaps as much on board the Morgonatic as on the 
Yacht, though the former had contributed but one mem- 


her, in the person of the gallant Midshipman. She was 
missed more than any other would have been, they told 
themselves. She was the sunshine and the winds from 
healthy places. 

- We are the old maids, the back numbers, said 
Sylvia sadly, after they had seen her depart out by the 
stables. 

The departure had been an event for them all. She 
would be back in a fortnight at the longest, but they 
felt that their winter season ‘was breaking up. There 
was advice, there was solicitude for her eomfort. It was 
as if their child were going into the world. How pretty 
she looked with her fluffy blonde hair and blue eyes! 
And yet probably she was the least beautiful of them 
all, the Steward and the Doctor perhaps excepted, but 
they depended on intellect for their charm. 

Sylvia strolled pensivelj 7 into the garden, her hut- 
mate was in no companionable mood that morning. 

1 What has come over Marion? she was thinking. 
She’s been different since that swim out to the kelp- 
beds. Something happened that day, she has not told 
me of. I wonder if she is in earnest about Giuseppe. 

‘ Why should she not be in earnest? pursued the 
thinking. Why should not every woman be in earnest 
about love? Here was Apollo come down among them, 
and why should they not love him one and all? The 
interesting thing was the different ways in which they 
accepted the experience. Marion of course, would be 
jealous like Charlotte. Sylvia told herself, she, among 
them all, was not jealous. 


She sought out a carved stone bench beneath some 
loquot trees that gave her the faintest glimpse of the 
distant sea. Like a window the dark green boughs 
framed a picture. But the picture that Sylvia’s thought 
put in the sunshine, was the golden brown portrait of 
a man. His eyes were smiling on her half-merrily, half- 
gravelv. Was he smiling so at Ada Trevalion, she now 
wondered. 

Sylvia had tried to become acquainted with Miss 
Trevalion. The girl needed a woman friend, she 
thought. Her aunt Mrs. Duke hardly seemed to know 
her, and Tessie had proved the most indifferent of 
cousins. Why had they invited her in their tiny cot- 
tage? Was Marion right? Had Mrs. Duke done it for 
revenge? If she had, then success had crowned her ef- 
forts. The men hovered around her like flies around 
molasses, and Giuseppe was the most intoxicated of 
them all. 

What did they find in her that was attractive? She 
was young, but so were Tessie and the Midshipman, ei- 
ther of them her superior in wit and character, if not 
also in bodily charm. 

Ada was languid, weak, insipid, like her conversa- 
tion. She lay in her bed the whole morning, and a mile 
walk would tire her to the point of tears. With women 
she was petulant, even peevish. Her remarks were the 
merest platitudes of daily life. She seemed to have 
stored away no treasures from her travels; she talked 
chiefly of the life at hotels. When a man came into 
her circle she enlivened. She would listen to what he 
280 


said with wistful eagerness, no matter if it were a re- 
mark that the weather never changed here. When she 
listened, her great blue eyes became illumined with a 
light that was both languishment and love. Her lips 
also became tremulous and dewy, and flashed a smile 
that still had something piteous about it. The other 
features, her forehead, nose and chin, her cheeks out- 
side the suggestion of the smile, remained calm, statu- 
esque, and yet child-like. Her skin was like the petals 
of a rose. As Marion said, she wriggled when she talked 
Her hands often clutched together behind her, could be 
seen nervously to open and shut. Giuseppe had once 
spoken of her as the Moon flower, swayed in the faint- 
est breezes of the night. 

Did he love her? Would he marry her? Sylvia 
wondered. Or would he play with her and forget her 
like the others? Charlotte said when he had painted her 
portrait he would be surfeited ; there were some ru- 
mors that he would paint her in the nude. Mrs. Duke 
was responsible for these rumors. She herself would do 
a statuette at the same time. Perhaps they would make 
studies at the camp. Giuseppe wanted to do her in a 
waterfall, a trickling, dashing one that leaps into a 
pool. Ada could be standing in the water. He told Syl- 
via quite prosaically that she had bad feet. When she 
went bathing she always wore stockings. 

This remark about the feet made Sylvia think he 
would not marry her. How could a man speak so of his 
future bride? Sylvia looked at her own feet and found 
them satisfactory. They were not, however, so dainty 
281 


as the Doctor’s. Giuseppe once said Miss Maxwell had 
the most graceful arch and ankle he had ever seen. How 
had, he been so observant of the Doctor? Sylvia also 
had a very pretty hand. He had praised it often and 
several times had kissed it. Also he had taken her foot 
in his hand and studied it professionally, but there had 
been nothing cold or impersonal in his clasp. He had a 
hand much given to clasping and stroking. It was warm 
and firm and fragrant with the sun. Also it was fra- 
grant with cigarette smoke, and his two fingers were 
stained with nicotine, quite brown. 

His lips when he kissed were firm as his hand 
clasps. They were not voluptuous hot full lips, but 
sweet and cool. His cheek was firm and steady, his 
beard harsh rather than silken. But his hair was soft 
as down pressed by the fingers. 

If he should come back from the camping expedi- 
tion and ask her to marry him, would she consent? 
She was not quite sure that she would: Marion would 
be estranged if she did so, and Marion was a friend she 
must keep for old age. Moreover the Misogynist had 
warned her. Joe was a good friend, he had said once, 
but he would never grind out money to support a fam- 
ily. He was made to live in the sunshine, not in the 
shadow. And responsibility casts the blackest shadow 
of all. 

Sylvia could work, but she liked villas and gardens. 
The Misogynist was naturally biassed, being rich. 

The Misogynist was not handsome, but he was cul- 
tivated. What did he find of interest in Miss Treval- 
282 


ion? He said it was the witchery of the south seas. He 
spoke of the slant of her eyes, her level eyebrows. A 
cultured man, spooning, about an eyebrow! Sylvia had 
pretty eyebrows, now, herself. 

Mr. Morgan praised Miss Trevalion for her ingen- 
uousness. Any girl can be ingenuous if she wants to be. 

Giuseppe had once said it was more beautiful, to 
leave a romance quite unsullied by any marriage. He 
said the fragrance of a flower in one’s memory was 
more powerful than the flavor of the fruit. 

Did he mean by that to tell her he would not mar- 
ry her? That he loved her he had never been slow to say. 

Love... love... what is its value without its con- 
summation? It is but little more than an ache within 
the heart. A pleasurable ache sometimes, she admitted. 
But a grudging, biting torment through the night. 

Sylvia was coming to dread the nights now, with 
their endless silence and Marion tossing restlessly in the 
next room. They had formerly been accustomed to ex- 
change confidences at such times. But now each pre- 
tended to the other she was asleep. 

Days were longc too, here in the garden. They 
would miss the Midshipman’s chatter at the table. 

What was Charlotte thinking of, now? she won- 
dered, idly. 

Was Giuseppe riding by the side of Ada Trevalion? 


Mr. Morgan and the Misogynist had been enlisted by 

288 


the doughty Captain for the motor excursion. There 
had been obstacles to overcome, and compromises to 
make, the chief of the latter being that the party should 
include Charlotte. Letitia had been suggested by Marion 
but Mr. Morgan had resisted firmly but politely. Char- 
lotte was not looking well, she needed a change. It al- 
most seemed at times the whole excursion was arranged 
for Charlotte, and Marion and Sjdvia were asked as her 
companions. 

Sylvia accepted this arrangement as a matter of 
course, and disappointed her friend in lack of spirit 
displayed. 

- The car is roomy and Mr. Quinn will drive. He 
has asked me to sit in the seat in front, on the start, so 
you will have Mr. Morgan to talk to. 

- With Miss Gaylord for number three, said Marion 
sarcastically. 

Sylvia laughed. 

- You always talk better with an audience. And 
there will be plenty of occasions for confidences. It 
would look awkward for two men and two women to go 
off on a three days tour. You know Mr. Morgan is a 
stickler for the proprieties. 

- If he wants a chaperone, why doesn’t he take a 
married woman? Probably he thinks Charlotte will 
pass for a widow. 

- Well, since they give the party, they ought to 
have the privilege of giving the invitations and I have 
heard you say that you love Charlotte dearly. 

- So. I do, but she is more fitted to grace a funer- 
284 


al than a bridal party. You know, I shall make ad- 
vances to Mr. Morgan. 

- I thought you were going to marry Mr. Plummer. 

- My darling, I shall make the advances for you. 
Seriously, Sylvia, you might do worse than marry Mr. 
Morgan . 

- And support you and your Don Juan on my al- 
lowance. You look far and plan thriftily, laughed 
Sylvia. 

Marion also laughed in equal humor, 

- Your town house would be a convenience for us, 
darling, when Pepe was painting the ladies. 

- I see you have taken the name from the children. 

- I only learned yesterday it was the Spanish for 
Joe. How do they get Pepe out of Jose? 

- How do we get Dick out of Richard?., or Bill out 
of William?., or Jack from John? 

- I shan’t quarrel. I rather like Pepe. 

- More of the children call him Don Pepito. 

- That is too babyfied. It’s like Joey. What is the 
short name for Marion? 

- I have heard Marna, but I don’t think it quite 
suits you. It suggests a whining soul like Miss Treva- 
lion. 

- Matey, you’re a brick. 1 knew you hated her. 

- I tried to like her, but I can’t get acquainted, a- 
pologized Sylvia. 

- We’re going to call at the camp, I’m anxious to 
see her. I’m curious to know how she takes to the role 
of a squaw. 

285 


- She will leave Tessie and Mrs. Duke to do the* 
work . 

* That is what Beatrice and Tessie decided she 
wouldn’t do. They had it arranged that she should 
wash dishes and make the beds. 

- Did she agree? 

- She was not consulted. It was announced. Mrs. 
Duke, too, is getting tired of her laziness. 

- I wish we were not going to their camp, Cody. 
It looks intrusive. Aren’t there other roads we can take 
in the mountains? 

Why, it’s the men of course, that are crazy to see 
the Mermaid. They will doubtless be taking her offer- 
ings. 

- Did Mr. Morgan propose going there? I thought 
it was your idea. 

- It was my idea to get them to go somewhere. 
You see I have hit on the idea that mermaids make 
good fish bait. I got it second hand from Mrs. Duke. 

- Cody, are you being quite honest with me? If I 
thought they w’ere going on purpose to visit the camp 
I’d fall out... have a headache or something. 

- Now Sylvia, I thought you were a sport. It’s all 
arranged and you’re threatening to play the quitter. 

- You don’t like Mrs. Duke and you say she does 
not like you, and still you plan to interrupt her party. 

♦ Well, if it is my will! 

- I won’t assist, that is all. It is not delicate. 

- Mv dear Simp, one can’t be delicate with Mrs. 
Duke. 


- At least one can leave her alone. 

- And let her take Joe out from under our very 
noses? 

- If Mr. Plummer didn’t want to go, he wouldn’t. 
He is the last man to be managed by a woman. 

- You seem to know a great deal about him. 

- I know some things. That is easy to know. If this 
trip is to that camp: I am not in it. 

- Do you mean to say you’ll break the party up? 

- There are other places to go. I’ll speak to Char- 
lotte. 

- My dear, you shall do nothing of the kind. The 
men have decided on the route. 

- Then I’ll speak to Mr. Quinn. 

- And what club, pray, will you hold over the head 
of Mr. Quinn? 

- He will do what I ask. 

Captain Cody’s face suddenly became like iron. 

- Sylvia Howard! if you do what you threaten, I 
will never speak to you again ! It is the end ! 

She raged out into the garden like a cyclone. 

Sylvia sat dazed in the sunlight. 





CHAPTER X 


The Doctor 


The Morganatic was like a ship deserted after the tour- 
ing-party had departed. With the Midshipman gone, 
then the Captain Mate and Chief Engineer, the Purser 
and Chief Steward had a dreary time of it entertaining 
the two passengers and the Doctor. 

Miss Maxwell began to develop symptoms, how- 
ever, that soon gave them plenty to talk about. 

As usual it was the Chief Steward who brought the 
news. She came into Cecily’s hut looking frightened... 

- I knocked at the Doctor’s door... Blanche asked 
me to. She said that Miss Maxwell was acting strange- 
ly... Really, Cecily, I have had such a shock! ... My 
knees are all a-tremble, Feel my hand... Cold as ice, 
isn’t it?... No?... Hot?... I have such a sinking in my 
stomach . 

- Letitia, what is the matter? 

- It was not what she said; it was the way she 


290 


acted. Something sly, and a strange light in her eyes. 
She had been sewing; hut before she let me in, she 
covered her work up with the morning paper. 

‘A new kimono? I asked, not to be put off. 

She giggled, and then said with affected careless- 
ness that it was her conception robe... Of course, she 
meant reception. 

Cecily laughed nervously... 

- Miss Maxwell is a scientist and chooses her words 
with precision. Go on... What did 3-011 say, then? 

- I said O! I couldn’t think of a thing to say. 

- Well, Letitia, that was a new experience for you. 

- Wasn’t it? The cunning look in her eyes made 
me uneas3 r . She began showing me a lot of diagrams 
she had been making of the reproduction of unicellular 
forms. 

- That’s her hobby, 

- But these were not pictures, they were diagrams: 
great circles and triangles, and triangles changing into 
circles. She spoke of one circle as Mary, and of another 
as Joseph, and the triangle was the Holy Ghost or 
something, but all muddled up with scientific terms. 

- What is her Christian name? asked Cecily. 

- Priscilla. Why do you ask me that? 

- I was wondering if it was Mary, mused Cecily. 

-Why, you are positively uncanny ! That’s what 

I’m coming to. She explained that Priscilla was the 
virgin form for Mary. Priscilla, she said, was derived 
from the centre of the triangle. 

- What did she say about Joseph? 


291 


- That he was temporal, not spiritual. He was 
finite. The circle within the triangle was infinite. But 
the finite was essential, though mortal. 

- It sounds a little crazy, admitted Cecily. 

- It made me shiver. And all the time she kept 
drawing those diagrams. And she’d step back and look 
at them as if they were the most wonderful things in 
the world. And she looked as if she were inspired 
while she was drawing them. 

- Had she also been showing them to Blanche? 

- I don’t know. What alarmed Blanche was the 
way she drank her coffee. She called it ambrosia of 
nectar. 

- I thought that referred to the brand; there are so 
many fancy names, but Blanche said this was a blend 
of Java and Rio. 

- She didn’t say any more about Joseph? 

- A long lingo that I couldn’t understand. One 
thing was that he would take her into Egypt. Has she 
a brother named Joseph, do you suppose? 

-You silly!... She’s thinking of Mr. Plummer. 
So that’s the explanation of those morning visits to 
the stables! 

Letitia gave a little scream and clutched her dress. 

- His name is Joseph! I never thought of it. 

At that moment, the Midshipman came into the 

hut. 


Miss Maxwell fluttered about in her study like a butter- 
fly escaped from the cocoon. She thought of the meta- 
phor, and it pleased her... She had come into the 
imago form of existence. Long she had been in the 
larva state... feeding, feeding... Her microscope and 
her books had been the foliage on which she browsed; 
then she had lain dormant in her years of teaching; 
and now, after two years of struggle, she had emerged. 
Nectar and honey-dew were now her only food, and 
her mission was one of love, one of pleasure. She would 
float in the fragrant ether, alight on the flowers, and 
await that fated dalliance of ecstasy, that apex of the 
experience of an individual, the final end for which 
each creature is destined, that ensures the immortality 
of the race. 

And another butterfly was hovering about the gar- 
den, a male, golden brown with warmth of sunlight... 
He had spied her. He was waiting. He was hiding... 
But she would fly away to him, seek him out, and 
then rest trembling for his pleasure, and her pain. 

In the gaiety or her humor, she sought out some 
paper-cambric and with the aid of milliner’s wire tried 
to shape some wings. She succeeded in getting an effect 
before the mirror, but they were difficult to attach to 
her shoulders. At all events, she saw that her hair 
should be curling; the graj in it did not matter, it 
went well with the white of the cambric. She would 
stencil on some symbols in a pattern; but her hair 
should float in curls about her face. 

At first, she thought to cut her hair, before curl- 
203 


ing, and actually she had taken up the scissors, when 
it came over her that it was a nun who cut her hair... 
(That would be unlucky; she must conceal the ends un- 
der a cap. Then the fancy came to her that she would 
make a cap to imitate the head of a butterfly, and she 
tumbled through her books to find a suitable sketch... 
But first she must heat the curling tongs, and she did 
not have any. Fortunately, she could borrow a pair 
from Blanche. But she must not be too precipitate in 
making this request... She called down the tube and 
asked for her coffee. 

In spite of herself, she had to tell Blanche some 
things; so she told her she was going to be married in 
the evening. Blanche, of course, would be incapable of 
comprehending the union of two butterflies, but mar- 
riage and the church she could understand. The church 
was considered only symbolically in the mind of the 
bride that was to be. She was a scientist, and cared 
naught for churches. What does an insect care for 
church? 

None the less, the idea held a fascination, and her 
butterfly mate was named Joseph... Saint Joseph, she 
would call him. Yes, it would be better to conform to 
the customs of the people. And Joseph did wed Mary, 
but that was afterwards. Before the marriage, came 
the Holy Ghost; that was in the form of an angel... a 
human butterfly!... However could she fasten on those 
wings? 

She was trying to arrange them before the mirror, 
she had draped some sprigged muslin over her shoul- 
294 


ders, when that prying Letitia Swan came tapping nt 
the door, and everything had to be concealed in a hurry. 

Of course, she did not tell Letitia anything. She 
was a good soul, but grovelling; still in the caterpiller 
stage. What could she know of butterflies and ether? 
There were however a few first principles that Letitia ’s 
mind might grasp, if put clearly in the form of dia- 
grams and figures. Letitia could cemprehend the tri- 
nity for instance, the God-head is a simple idea for 
worms. All one has to do is to draw a triangle. Why 
should Letitia be shocked at a triangle? Of course, 
there was an underlying significance, but that she could 
not grasp. In order to pacify the religious conventions 
of Letitia, she had named her circles Joseph and Mary. 
Mary was the circle in the triangle the core of the God- 
head, the hermaphroditic source of creation. Letitia 
was not a scientist, and could not comprehend the idea 
of the hermaphroditic generation. But she could appre- 
icate the points of the triangle 

Joseph also belonged to the worm stage of develop- 
ment, but he, too, showed signs of the immortal. The 
church had only made him a saint but she, Mary, 
would lift him to the grade of an archangel. It would 
scarcely be fitting for the Mother of God to wed with 
anything less. Her earthly protector and companion 
must be inbued with the celestial essence of the Holy 
Ghost. 

But how would he recognize her divinity when 
she went to the garden to meet him. Surely she must 
have the wings of a butterfly, the symbol of immortal- 
295 


ity and beauty. Feverishly she tore some wire from the 
form of a bonnet and set to work with the attachment of 
her wings. She curled her hair hurriedty and fixed the 
cap in its place. The effect was very spiritual, she de- 
cided. The wings were difficult to manage and kept 
drooping, then she found that the mystic robe would 
not go over them. It was exasperating to have to un- 
twist the wires after she had them so carefully adjust- 
ed. Her fingers were nervous and trembling, there was 
a faintness almost of collapse in her knees. Her 
head was light and buoyant however. It seemed like a 
butterfly itself. It sometimes floated away from her body 
and hovered over the cut flowers on her table. Fi- 
nally the robe was adjusted. Joseph would recognize 
the symbols. She hoped he was familiar with biology. 
It was stupid that she had never asked him about that. 
How the poor wings drooped! almost dragged! But no 
matter, there were wings in her head. He would rec- 
ognize the spiritual reality, the material semblance was 
but to point out the way. 

She listened outside her door for any footsteps, it 
was important that her flight should not be interrupted, 
fortunately the house was deserted. The prying Letitia 
had gone away. The servants, too, were in the rear of 
the house. She spread her wings and floated down the 
stairway. There was no longer need of strength in her 
knees. Yes, she found she could lift her feet from the 
ground altogether and sail out and hover over the 
flowers. 


The Midshipman had all sorts of things to tell them. 
She had ridden back the day before with Tessie, but, as 
Mrs. Duke had joined the party in the touring car, Be- 
atrice had spent the night in the cottage. The car would 
be coming hack this morning. They had made a detour 
to the coast and spent the night in some hotel. Mr. 
Morgan wanted them to see the white cliffs and the ef- 
fects of the light in the early morning. Ada had gone 
along with them, she and Sylvia sat in the folding 
seats. The Captain had been very affable with Mrs. 
Duke and accepted even Ada w r ith real graciousness. 
Mr. Plummer and the boys had spent the night in 
camp, but they, too, would be returning this morning. 

Oh, yes, they had had a lovely week. Ada was not 
much account in the kitchen, but no doubt it had been 
tiresome work to pose. They had kept her standing till 
she wept... Fortunately there were no mosquitoes in 
California. 

Troubles? Oh, yes, there had been a few. Tessie 
and Ben had broken their engagement. It was too bad. 
They had so lately had a three month renewal, and not 
two weeks had passed. It was Tessie’s fault. She had 
accused Ben of being fickle, as if all men weren’t fick- 
le. She knew that before she gave her word. Tessie 
was no more consistent than anyone else. 

- And how did Charlotte seem? Letitia asked. 

Charlotte had seemed very contented, quiet, but 
more settled in her mind. Sylvia, too, was quiet and 


thoughtful... something was going to happen pretty 
soon. 

- You don’t mean that Joe Plummer has made up 
his mind? asked Letitia with a catch in her breath. 

- I think maybe even that, reflected the Midship- 
man. But which way it is made up, I can not guess. 
He was very nice to us all, hut I thought he was especi- 
ally tender towards the Captain. 

- The Captain! exclaimed the Steward and Purser 
together. 

- Why, she hates him! added the astounded Letitia. 

- It is our woman ’sway to hate until we have con- 
quered. Then we are loving enough, for a time. 

- See here, Beatrice, don’t you be getting philo- 
sophical, admonished Cecily. I suspect the Captain’s 
victory is for the Mate. 

They were laughing at some of the Midshipman’s 
descriptions of the camping party, when the touring 
car rolled up to the house. The Captain, the Mate and 
the Engineer got out, all of them in the very best of 
spirits. They had left Mrs. Duke and Ada at the cot- 
tage, and the men, too, had stopped at the club. How 
delightful it was to be home again, on board the dear 
old Morganatic! 

They lingered in the hall and in the music room, 
exchanging bits of gossip of what had passed. Then 
they strolled out on the porch through the open win- 
dows. The time still lacked a half hour to lunch. 

- Let’s all walk through the garden together, said 
Marion. In sea dog let’s set our stays and sail before 
29X 


the wind. 

Never had they gone forth in such harmony. The 
two passengers came out to join their gayety. 

They had drifted down as far as the third terrace 
when the Midshipman, who had been in advance, came 
running back. 

- I think it is the Doctor, she said to the Captain. 

The Chief Steward without further reason gave a 
screech. 

They were all frightened. It was the Purser who 
was the bravest, in a vague way Cecily Blount had 
been warned. 

Sylvia tried to steady her voice and call Miss Max- 
well, but a shrill whisper was all the sound she could 
make. The Captain became perfectly white and stood 
transfixed in the center of the group. The Engineer 
could not utter a word ; her face, her whole body was 
quivering. 

There was a clump of poinsettias on the lower ter- 
race, and in these the crazed Miss Maxwell was moving. 
Her half grayed hair hanging in strings, the paper cap 
had long since fallen off, her wings now half detatched 
were trailing dejectedly, her lawn robe was torn and 
ragged from the bushes. But the inimitable charact- 
erization was unmistakable. She was a butterfly flit- 
ting from flower to flower. With her arms she gave a 
vivid sense of wings... rising, flapping, then hoyering 
and poising. Her face, too, was more like an insect 
than like human features... the fixed eyes, the sipping 
motion of the mouth, dusty and pollen stained with its 
21W 


contact with many flowers. The whole garden beyond 
was trampled down and crushed. 

It was the two passengers who ran as they scream- 
ed, and that started the general panic of retreat. The 
Captain ran like lightning far ahead, Sylvia and Char- 
lotte clasped hands and ran together. 

Letitia stumbled, reeled and swayed and had to be 
dragged along by Cecily. It was the Midshipman who 
backed away closing up the rear, and pitiously calling 
as she retreated. 

- Miss Maxwell ! Miss Maxwell ! 

But the butterfly continued to flutter on in the 
crushed and trampled thicket of crimson flowers. 

When all had once more gained the shelter of the 
gallery, there was an attempt at the rally of the forces. 

- Call up Mr. Morgan, said the Captain, but with 
a voice so shaken she could barely be understood. 

- Why should he be made responsible, objected 
Charlotte. He had nothing to do with getting Miss 
Maxwell here. 

- We might get Mr. Plummer, suggested Cecily. 

- He’s not back yet, replied the Midshipman. 

- Call Mr. Quinn, suggested Sylvia. 

- Or Mrs. Stowe, suggested the two passengers. 

This last suggestion seemed the best, and Miss Rea- 
mer and Miss Clark went in search of her. 

She came and listened to the story in dismay. Like 
Letitia she seemed in constant danger of fainting. 

It was the Midshipman who first came to a de- 
cision. 

mo 


- I shall send Carlos for Mrs. Duke, she said. 

- We’ll all go with you to the garage, said the oth- 
ers. There was a horror of being left alone. 

The Captain suggested some of them go in the 
car and they could explain, break the news to Mrs. 
Duke. 

Beatrice, however finaly opposed this. 

- Tell her, Carlos, that we are in great trouble, 
that we want her. She must get in at once and come 
back . 

- We will wait here, at the garage, till she comes, 
said Sylvia. It’s less horrible here near the servants 
and the stables. 

It was not a long quarter of an hour before they 
heard the car returning. 

- What is it? asked Mrs. Duke stepping out and an- 
xiously surveying them. It must be Miss Maxwell. 
Where is she? 

- She’s on the lower terrace in the poinsettias, by 
Mr. Plummer’s studio. 

- We will go down with you, quivered theCaptain. 

- If she were dead you would tell me, said Mrs. 
Duke. I think you mean to say she is insane. 

- We may have been mistaken, protested Sylvia. 
We will go with you. 

- Did she threaten you? appealed Mrs. Duke. 

- No: she acted as if she thought she were a but- 
terfly. 

- It was horrible, moaned Letitia. I can’t go. Oh, 
Cecily, stay with me in the house! 


- I think you had best all stay, said Mrs. Duke. I 
am sure I can do more with her alone. She looked at 
the Captain with a plaintive quivering lip. I have 
known one or two such cases before. 

The Captain walked over and kissed her on the 
cheek, and the unheeded tears flowed down her face as 
she led the Ship’s officers into the house. 


CHAPTER XI 


The Chief Steward 


There was another live-oak tree that the Chief Steward 
haunted. This one grew higher up the hill on the other 
side of the studio of Joseph Plummer. It was on a bit 
of lawn not commonly frequented. The terrace had 
never been extended in that direction, and there were 
no paths that led there, and no flowers. The reason 
that Letitia liked it was that it was near him; and one 
day she had learned by climbing it that she could get 
a glimpse over his rear wall to a chamber window; and 
she surmised that it was in that chamber that he slept. 

She confessed now to herself without reserve that 
everything that pertained to him was holy. She was 
not crazy like poor Priscilla... that, she knew... and 
whom Mrs. Duke reported as getting on well at the 
sanitarium, where the doctors said she was suffering 
under only a temporary delusion... No: Letitia was in 
possession of her full senses; but she was in love, and 
804 


she was glad of it, and she welcomed every ache. 

‘it may make me more human, like Mrs. Duke’... 
she often told herself... ‘How daring she was to lead 
poor Priscilla down the bill away from all us fools who 
were fainting and screaming like a lot of zanies, more 
fitted for the lunatic asylum than Priscilla, herself, who 
went along with Irene as gentle as a child, and stayed 
with her in the cottage till train time, and Tessie came 
up for her travelling things. 

Yes, Letitia may have let her mind wander some- 
times from the object, but she told herself she was gen- 
uinely in love. She tabulated all the symptoms, as she 
made sure of them, in her diary... neatly from 1 to 10. 
They read like this: 

1) A dryness of the mouth when in the presence 
of the beloved... Before this, I have always supposed 
the mouth would water. This dryness, however, now 
that I think of it, is natural, and is doubtless similar 
to that of an ern harassed speaker on the lecture plat- 
form... And, also, I can’t think of a word to say, even 
if my mouth was wet enough to say it. 

2) A feeling of great happiness, in his presence, 
that expresses itself in a redness of the ears; especially 
if he turns in my direction. 

3) A horrible aching in the region of the lower 
aesophegus that I could scream with, and yet that I 
wouldn’t relinquish for the world. 

4) A love for everybody, and a wish to do good. 

5) A fiendish desire to claw the eyes out of any- 

305 


one he smiles on, or who smiles on him. 

6) An uncontrolable desire to go to him which I 
invariably control. 

7) A worship of every object that he passes. Be- 
fore, I have considered this all bosh. I caress the soil 
that has been pressed by his feet. I went to the saddle 
room to pet his saddle in secret, and I found Beatrice 
Knox there a petting it. I climb a tree to - No: I 
won’t write that... but I do. 

8) A prinking before the mirror for hours; and 
succession of alternate judgments that one is beautiful 
and hideous. 

9) A loathing of all poetry... Orlando wasn’t in 
love at all. 

10) A desire to see nobody but him ; and a desire 
never to see him either. Perfect happiness if absolutely 
certain that everybody were irrevocably dead. 

One night, she had climbed the tree to watch his 
window, when she saw a woman’s shadow on the shade. 
It was so distinctly outlined that she almost could rec- 
ognize it; the head was round, the profile was clean 
cut. The woman must have been standing near the win- 
dow, she paused there for a moment and then passed. 
It was not long before the light was extinguished, and 
there was nothing more except the vague bulk of the 
house. 

The hour was close to midnight, perhaps after. Le- 
titia never came early to this outlook for fear she might 
be discovered by some wanderer. Also Mr. Plummer 

808 


usually retired late, He entered this chamber from an 
outside stair-way, visible in the day time, but at night 
undiscernable in the shadow of the overhanging roof. 
She had never seen him enter it; she had never heard 
his footsteps, but the light appeared for a half hour in 
the window, though al ways the shade was drawn to pre- 
vent seeing in. To-night was the first time a shadow had 
appeared there. His shadow had never been thrown on 
the screen though she had prayed for it. Now this wo- 
man, was surely a woman that she knew. It was a face 
that she knew well. It was someone on board the Mor- 
ganatic, who had stolen away overboard and gone to 
join him. 

There is so little to recognize in a silhouette, even 
in a bulk of any kind. We recognize our friends by 
their expression, by the shifting that flows over their 
face. 

Letitia went over all the list. 

First she began with Mrs. Duke, 

All she could conclude about Mrs. Duke was that 
certainly it was not her daughter Tessie. Tessie’s hair 
was always flying about and this woman’s hair was close 
to her head. 

Why didn’t all women have flying hair? t’ would 
make guessing easy, unless the shadow had flying hair, 
too. She concluded it might be Mrs. Duke but also it 
might.be someone else. Anyway she hated her, she 
cursed her and then went on to the next one in the list. 

The Captain... it might easily be the Marion Cody; 
the head, the figure, the hair were much the same. Al- 

307 


so Marion’s shadow would be large, but so would Syl- 
via’s if she stood near the lamp. 

Sylvia! was it possibly Sylvia! Tt looked like her 
enough to be the Mate. Oh, dear, that ivory tower of 
virtue, how easily scaled ! Yes, even Letitia, herself, 
would have thrown down a ladder from the balcony. 
Conclusion, it might be Sylvia and might not. 

Charlotte was the most probable sinner, her light 
had gone out a half hour before. Besides, Charlotte had 
known Joe for three years, and they were almost at 
one time engaged. Now she thought of it, Letitia de- 
cided the shadow was Charlotte’s, and as she thought 
of it longer, she decided it was not. It was more like 
what the lamp would make of Cecily. 

Cecily Blount... that was it. It was the Purser! 
She was the only one who would dare. 

The Midshipman was a reckless little spirit. It 
might easily be Beatrice Knox. 

Letitia, cramped, yearning in her tree, found her 
neck growing rigid with long craning. She often thought 
she would crawl down and go the rounds of the huts 
and see if she could learn if any inhabitant was missing. 

The only way to get them was to call fire, or burg- 
lars, or something, and then one might easily run up. 

But always she was deterred from this venture by 
the thought that the light would be relumed. Surely, 
no woman would dare to spend the night there. It 
would be too dangerous, coming out in the morning. 

Horrible thought! Suppose she should slip down 
in the darkness, and the lamp in the chamber should 
308 


not be lighted! Letitia strained her ears as well as her 
eyes. The whole night was one long age of straining. 

Yes: she sat there through long hours till daylight 
and the green dawn came creeping o’er the sea. Al- 
ways she was going over her list as in a fever, her 
limbs, too, were aching as with its sickness. 

But patience was rewarded in this instance. The 
dawn had passed, the sun was about to leap into the 
sky, when the door softly opened and a woman came 
out and stood for a moment on the landing, gazing in... 
before closing the door again on the loved sleeper. 

Then the woman turned and looked squarely up to- 
ward Letitia, though she did not see her, she was look- 
ing at the villa. 

Letitia sat as dumb as the limbs of that old tree. 

The woman was Mary Enriques, the cook!., and 
there was the quiet of great peace in her comely face. 


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